


Distant Lands

by buttrice



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Gem kissing, Hurt/Comfort, I cannot stress this enough, Idiots in Love, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mutual Pining, Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Snark, Unresolved Sexual Tension, female y/n, there's so much snark in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-02-10 04:06:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 101,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21470770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttrice/pseuds/buttrice
Summary: Stranded on a planet with toxic conditions and nothing but the clothes on your back, your only means of survival lies within the gem that got you here in the first place.
Relationships: Spinel (Steven Universe)/Reader
Comments: 254
Kudos: 548





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> (First chapter note: Only the very beginning takes place similar to the events in the movie, but this is canon diversion. Spinel warps directly to earth via warp pad, there is no injector, and she has no rejuvenator.)
> 
> (A/N: This is going to be different from our last one. Spinel here hasn’t had a chance to deal with any of her emotions, and this is going to be fairly.. dubcon for a while. This is your warning. My wife and I decided we wanted to explore her character growth in.. a different type of situation.)

Steven gives you a high-five as you toss your sandwich wrapper in a perfect 5.0 in the garbage bin across the street. The two of you just got finished eating lunch, and you hadn't seen your favorite teen in several days since he just got back from Homeworld a few hours prior.

"Wanna go check to see if they're done installing the warp pad yet?" Steven asks, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"We've left them alone for a while, I feel like they should be done by now." You chime in with a smile.

You both meander slowly through Little Homeworld, chatting about the more recent events that you guys have been dealing with. With the Diamonds now on your guys’ side, there has been honestly TOO much to do, and you’ve been trying to lighten Steven’s load. But the kid is just too earnest, and much too hardworking for his own good.

As soon as you guys round the corner, you see Amethyst standing near Bismuth and the newly installed warp pad.

“Yo! Over here!” The purple gem motions over to the both of you, as Bismuth walks away to deal with a couple of other things. “Just got done. Looks nice yeah?” She chuckles, and ruffles Steven’s hair. “Sorry to keep my biggest fan waiting.” Steven swats her hand away, and the two of them laugh for a bit. All of you start talking about how far the place has come, and everything you guys still need to get done.

You have known Steven since you were 14 and applied to be his babysitter through a local ad. At first it was really rough, since you know, the whole gem business shtick was really not what you were expecting out of the job. But ever since Pearl accidentally threw that jungle gym at you and you dodged it perfectly, you proved to be a useful guardian for Steven, and they recruited you for gem missions on the occasion. Pearl was the one that taught you most of what you knew, her sword fighting lessons came in very handy the few times you were in life threatening situations.

Over the last 8 years you have watched one of your favorite people grow up to be the most dependable person you know today. He doesn't really need you now - but you're apart of their family, and you never planned on leaving them. You don't know what you'd ever do if you lost this kid. You'd do whatever it took to keep him safe, and alive. He worries about you constantly - you are human, after all, but honestly? You're resilient if anything, and stubborn. It'd take a lot to kill you.

"Alright! Who gets to be the first to test out the warp pad?" You're interrupted from your thoughts at the sound of Steven's voice. You look up to see Amethyst raising her hand excitedly, and her and Steven play rock paper scissors to see who goes first.

You're only vaguely paying attention to what's going on, when you get this indescribable gut feeling to flee.

The warp pad activates - none of you are touching it.

Within a split second you've grabbed Steven's arm and yanked him to the side - just as some sort of scythe hits the ground where he stood with a loud THUNK. You move to stand in front of him, and reach behind you to grab your sword.

You grasp empty air, and curse at yourself for leaving your sword at home. Of fucking course. You let out an aggravated noise, and you see a pink arm stretch over and yank the scythe out of the ground. You follow the arm until you make eye contact with the attacker, her eyes meeting yours and a wicked grin spreads across her face. 

"Are you Steven Universe?" She all but growls out the name. 

"Um, yes?" Steven pipes up behind you. 

You turn your face slightly to him, giving him a disapproving glare. He shrugs, only looking a bit sheepish. This damn kid was way too trusting, and one day it would be the end of him. But not if you can help it, and definitely not today.

“Perfect." She purrs. You realize at this point that she’s a gem, making it all the more confusing as to why she would attack Steven. 

You don't get any time to question her though, as she launches herself at you - scythe spinning wildly. You feel a rope wrap around your waist, Amethyst pulling you out of the way as the pink gem sinks her weapon into ground where you just stood. 

"Woah, too close!" Amethyst shouts, unwrapping you from her weapon. Once untangled you quickly look for a weapon of your own, eyes roaming the ground. You find a thick piece of rebar, slightly bent at the top - it could do for now. You pick it up and turn back to the magenta-haired gem. You see Steven stepping out of another swipe from her, doing a decent job dodging the attacks while you figured out a makeshift weapon.

Amethyst and you join the fray, you running right at the mysterious gem with your piece of rebar and Amethyst distracting her with a snap of her whip. You thrust the makeshift sword out just in time to block her scythe as she arches it down on the half-gem teen, scythe and rebar colliding with a sharp clang. 

You strain against her clearly superior strength as her eyes meet yours, and for the first time since she showed up it's as if she has just noticed you. Her face splits into a similar feral grin like before. 

"Well heya, toots." She pushes down harder on the scythe. "Didn't see you there." The pink gem mocks. You let out a growl as you shove her back, swinging your makeshift weapon at her. She dodges it with ease, simply stretching her body out of the way. She snaps back into place and leans on her weapon, sneering at you. She looks absolutely unhinged. "D'aw, did I make ya mad?" You ignore her jab, and you turn to face Steven briefly.

"Steven, I need you to get the other gems." You attempt to sound more confident and convincing than you actually feel.

"Y/N, I can't leave you to fight her alone!" The teen replies, clearly worried.

"She'll be fine, Steven." Amethyst stands by your side, jabbing a thumb at her chest. "She's got me." This seems enough to placate the curly haired boy. 

He turns on his heels to book it to the warp pad, and you and Amethyst turn your attention back to his assailant. 

"Oh, I don't think so." The violent gem growls. 

She makes a dash to get past you and Amethyst, gunning it for Steven. Thinking quickly, Amethyst lashes out with her whip, catching the gems torso and swinging her back towards you. You swing at her with the rebar in your hand - but like she could read your mind, she blocks it with her scythe instantly. 

"Guess I'll need to take you out first." The gem says, clearly aggravated. Her attention was now solely on you as she jumps back, preparing another onslaught.

"What's your problem with us!?" You yell out as she swings again at you, and you easily block the attack - it’s almost like she’s playing with you. The muscles in your hand are tingling uncomfortably from the vibrations of your two weapons colliding. 

The gem answers with only a cackle as she arches back, ready to strike again. This time her swing of the weapon is stopped immediately by Amethyst's whip, her rope wrapped around the handle. 

The two struggle for a moment while you swing for the pink gems midsection. The rebar makes contact with her body - but stretches with the swing, making you feel like you just got your rebar stuck in taffy. She turns her attention back to you and gives one final pull on her scythe, ripping it free from Amethyst's whip. The weapon comes at you fast and you barely manage to move out of the way as the tip of the scythe scratches down the side of your face as you move, cutting deep into your flesh. Almost instantly warm blood starts to seep down into your eye, causing you to shut it tight and limit your vision. 

“Y/N! Are you alright?” Amethyst calls from behind the pink gem, said gem now turning her attention to the purple being. 

“I’m fine!” You kind of lie as you rush at your attacker, bringing the rebar down fast. The blood in your eye is fucking with the rest of your senses.

The gem catches your weapon easily with her hand and turns to face you, a wicked smile plastered on her face. She pulls you forward and you stumble, not wanting to let go of your weapon. With her free hand she throws her scythe, the weapon spinning towards Amethyst. The purple gem barely had any time to dodge, sharp blade lodging into her stomach and her form dissipates with a gentle poof. Her gem clinks softly as it hits the ground. 

You stare at it in horror.

“AMETHYST!” You yell over the pink gems shoulder before turning your attention back to her. Her hand, now free of the weapon, begins to wrap around you as you struggle to pull the rebar from her grip. 

"Let me go you.. you.. PINK ASSHOLE!" You nearly scream rather childishly. The gem lets out a hearty laugh, before stopping abruptly and looking you right in the eyes. 

Before.. you hadn’t been afraid of her, not really. You were more concerned with making sure Steven was alive. But in this moment, you felt fear creep up on you as she began to speak.

"You know what? I think I like you." She giggles, albeit maniacally, pulling you flushed against her chest as she frees the rebar from your hands and tosses it out of reach. "You're a feisty one." 

Dread hits you like a brick to the face.

"Oh, we're gonna have so much fun." The last word is dragged out, almost hissed, as her face splits into another feral grin. 

Just as you think you're doomed you hear the warp pad activate. You struggle in the gems hold to look towards the pad as the rest of the Crystal Gems and Steven step off of it. 

The gem holding you looks over her shoulder and lets out a guttural growl. The gems and Steven take in the scene before them, Amethyst poofed and on the ground, the gem holding you, and the blood still actively pouring down your face. 

“Amethyst!” Pearl shouts, heading straight for the gem, picking her up and cradling the purple gem close to her chest. 

“Y/N!” Steven makes his way past Pearl, pulling out his shield and standing ready. “You let her go, now!” Steven demands, adding on a silent “Please?” as your captor glares at him. She turns you around in her grip, and now you’re facing Steven.

“Or what?” 

“I'll ..uh ..I'll take her back.” Steven takes another step forward, lifting up his shield. Garnet, who had calmly made her way over to the curly haired boy, places a hand on his shoulder. 

Steven looks up at her and then back at you and your captor. It takes him a moment to realize that the pink gem had you in front of her as her own personal meat shield meaning that him and the gems were powerless. 

They couldn't attack her without risking your life. The realization must of been obvious on his face because your captor gives him a knowing grin. 

“You can’t hurt me without hurtin’ your friend.” Her accent lulls out as she slams the final nail in your coffin. With no way to rescue you, Steven lowered his shield. He held out his hands in defence as he approached slowly.

"You don't have to do this." He keeps his voice low and calm. The gem sneers at the teen, huffing out a sceptical laugh. 

"You don't know nothin'." The pink gem growls, her grip on you tightening. You wheeze as she constricts against your airways. 

"Steven," You cough out, struggling to breathe "Please don't do anything rash." She smiles, leaning down so her lips barely brush your ear.

"Look at you," She purrs, her breath warm against your face. You grimace in pain, causing the gem to smile wider. “Defending your little friend.” Her grip loosens a hair as she turns her attention back to Steven. 

You look at him, your eyes pleading with him to understand your unspoken words. 

"Move." She demands. 

Steven complies, holding his hands up in defeat. The rest of the Crystal Gems stay put as your captor moves past them. 

She's heading to the warp pad and you begin to panic, fear once again invading your mind. You make an attempt to struggle out of her hold, putting the last of your energy into it. Her arms tighten unbearably so, and you feel tears forming as you gasp for air. 

The last thing you see is Steven reaching out to you, before blacking out.


	2. Two

You wake up with a jolt, gasping for air.

Sitting up, you internally wince. Everything fucking hurts, and your body feels like you got tossed under a 16-wheeler. It’s pretty dark around you, but you can tell that you’re alone. 

Once you feel like you can breathe normally again, you begin to look at your surroundings. The air is kind of humid, and smells.. weird. You were.. somewhere. It was hard to tell with how little light there was. Could it be night time already? Were you really knocked out for a whole day? The walls around you are crumbling and falling apart but it doesn’t look like anything from Earth, and you could almost make out some sort of drawings on them. They’re too worn out for you to make anything out of it, though. 

You can see lush green plants growing from the cracks in the walls, and they seem strange to you. You’re no expert on plant life, but you haven’t seen plants that look like this ever in your life. Thick, ropey vines were streaming down the surface of the walls, and large bulbous, orange flower-like plants were blooming on them. They looked.. fleshy.

You stand up from your place on the ground, legs wobbly from their lack of use, and realize that half the reason why you feel so weird is that the gravity is heavier? You feel sluggish. You’re definitely not on Earth. Fuck. This is just.. great.

You take one step and groan out loud. Your leg muscles are so sore, and this is taking an immense amount of effort to not go back to curl up in a corner and pretend everything is fine. You start to feel your way around the room, hands trailing against the wall. Slowly making your way northbound, hands running over several vines and one of the flowers hiss - you quickly step away from it. Okay. The fucking flower hissed at you, no big deal. 

You keep walking in the direction you were going before, and eventually find an opening in the wall with some moonlight pouring in like a spotlight. You have to bend down to get out, nearly stumbling over the scattered, worn bricks on the ground. Once you steady yourself, you look up to see that yes, it was night time you guess? You don’t see any stars, and the atmosphere is murky with a thick fog. The sky is dark and tinted a soft bright green - unlike anything you’ve ever seen, and a bright, orange moon. Actually.. three moons, what the hell?

Turning your head in both directions, you look around you for any immediate signs of danger. The trees around you are thick like a jungle, and you don’t see an immediate pathway to how exactly you got here.

Swiping your forehead, you wince and remember your flesh wound from earlier. It feels dry, so that’s good, but it also seems to be smeared down your face like someone tried wiping it off. You don’t know how you feel about this, so you try not to think about it.

You eventually spot a crude footpath that looks pretty old and overgrown, like it hasn’t been used in a century you think. You walk slowly along it, body sore and not used to the gravity change - and peer around you at the plantlife. Many of the trees here are tall and droopy, long leaves coming from high arches above. They’re similar to palm trees but also very much not. So many large tree-like bushes that are in various shades of greens and oranges, leaves and color formation very alien to you. It’s all very strange. You don’t seem to see any kind of organic lifeforms around either, except for some type of gnats and other small bugs.

You keep walking along the path you found, and you spot a couple of freshly torn tree branches, so you forge ahead.

Your mind is swimming with thoughts as you slowly regain most of what happened today. A gem you’ve never seen before tried to kill Steven, knocked you out and took you with her to a different planet, as.. what. A bargaining chip? She didn’t outright kill you, which she could’ve done very easily, but didn’t for some reason. You’re positive you came here via warp pad, but you cannot leave alone, as you are human, and humans can’t use the warp pad without at least a gem beside them. 

Steven must be so very worried about you, and you hate to make him worry. You hate to make any of them worry. They’ve done so much for you, despite.. certain things. You shake your head to clear your thoughts. Best not to dwell on past mistakes, especially when you’ve got much more prominent things to worry about. Like finding a way off this fucking weird planet.

The path ahead of you turns slightly, and you start to see the beginning of an opening to a clearing. A spark of hope bubbles inside your chest as you pick up the pace. You nearly trip out into the clearing - catching yourself on a nearby tree, and you marvel at the view around you for a second.

There’s a good sized clearing here before a massive line of trees hit the outer edge - it’s probably the size of two football fields you think. The expanse of the horizon is enormous, all three moons in clear view, and you think you see a few scattered stars here and there through the thick atmosphere. There’s a couple large hills in the distance and some large towering rock formations as well from what you can see, and it would take at least a day or two to physically walk over there if you wanted to - but you’d rather eat your own foot than stay here any longer than you have to, curiosity aside. Off to the left of the jungle there seems to be miles upon miles of rocky terrain, huge chasms running through the sides of the crust. You can’t really make out anything around it from here, though.

Your eyes eventually spot the warp pad in the middle of the clearing, and you make a beeline for it. Your heart rate picks up pace too, and you cannot quell the hopeful feelings inside you.

It.. it looks intact. You let out a long, weary breath that you didn’t realize you were holding in, and walk around the warp pad to inspect it. 

There isn’t any damage, and it looks usable. This was definitely the one that you came through when you were brought here. You’re unsure if there are any others on this planet, or if this is the only one. Speaking of.. all of this. This was a gem planet, clearly. You have no idea what it was used for, from what you can tell. Actually, from what you can tell, this planet seems pretty intact? Compared to some of the other planets you’ve seen while you’ve adventured with the crystal gems. Why was it abandoned? Aside from you wanting to go home, this place doesn’t seem so bad.

You are so completely lost in thought that you don’t hear someone approaching you from behind.

“Well, what do we have here?” A familiar voice speaks up from a few feet behind you, and you freeze in your tracks.

You feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and your turn to look at her, eyes wide.

“Didja think your little friends were gonna come save ya?” She says with a devilish grin, and takes a threatening step towards you. You take a step back. Your mouth doesn’t work for a few seconds as you regard her appearance, now that she’s not trying to actively chop you to pieces.

Her heart-shaped gem is upside down, and on her chest. Her pink hair is in pigtails, and she’s got streaks down her face, and her attire is strange. You have no idea who she’s supposed to be, and honestly you don’t give a shit. You don’t care about anyone that would dare lay a hand on Steven.

“They still could,” You reply, and try to keep your voice even. “They wouldn’t just abandon me.”

“Aww, that’s cute of you to think.” Her grin gets a little wider. “I hate to say it toots, but they ain’t gonna find us out here.” She takes another step closer to you.

“They’ll find a way,” You back up the same distance, and your heel hits the edge of the warp pad. “They always do, somehow.”

She considers you for a moment, and lets out a low chuckle that sets off your fight or flight. Your feet feel rooted to the ground.

“I seriously doubt that.” She says with a grin, and you watch in dawning horror as she expands her fist, slamming it down on the warp pad behind you with a loud crash. Some pieces of debris hits you, and you stumble, crashing to the ground. 

The only half-baked plan you had of escaping just flew out the window. You struggle to get back on your feet, and you hold yourself back from screaming endlessly into the night.

“Why the FUCK would you do that!?” You yell at her, forgoing any rational thought that you had. “That was the EASIEST way for me to get home and you just ruined any chance I had!” She lets out another chuckle before responding.

“Oh, you thought you had a chance. That’s adorable.” She continues to take another step towards you, insistently getting closer. “Ya’ see.. I brought you here with the intention of not letting you go.”

“That makes no fucking sense, you came to kill Steven, like every single other gem.” You reply, unable to move anywhere without tripping on the pieces of the broken warp pad. She’s only a couple feet in front of you.

“I did. Changed my mind, though.” 

“Wh..” Too many thoughts are racing through your head. “What do you mean, changed your mind!? Why ME!? I’m not even a gem! You could’ve just killed me and made this easy!!!”

“Now, why would I want to kill my best friend?” She chuckles, darkly. “I just got her.”

“B-best friend.” You reiterate, mind reeling at this. “Excuse me? You are NOT my best friend. You’re far from it.” 

Her eyes snap to yours, and you’re immediately filled with unease. She moves closer to you, and gets right up in your space, merely a few inches from you.

You want to bolt.

“Ya wanna repeat that.” She replies calmly and regards your face, blinking once.

“You’re not my best friend, and I don’t even know you!”

Her hand snaps to your face, and she’s gripping your jaw roughly. You can feel her thumb pressing into your cheek, and she forces you to look at her. She grins wide enough that you can see many of her teeth, and it doesn’t reach her eyes at all. 

“Sweetcheeks, we can get to know each other. We have.. time.” She ends the last word slowly, and every fiber of your being is telling you to get very, very far away from her. You grip her arm with your hands to try and pull away and she pulls you flush against her, still holding your jaw painfully. She wraps her arm around you to keep you in place.

“Now, just why would you want to leave dear ‘ol Spinel? After everything I’ve done to make sure we’d have a grand time together?” The moonlight above making her eyes look brighter, her irises boring into yours. You can’t look away.

“S-Spinel?” You push on her arm, trying to get some distance between the two of you, but she holds tight. She looks absolutely delighted and practically purrs as you say her name, and you are one hundred percent uncomfortable now. You make another attempt to pull away, but the gem has an iron grip on you. 

“Say it again.” She demands, holding you in place. “Say my name.”

You feel like no matter what you do, you’re probably fucked regardless.

“Uh.. Spinel?” You nearly squeak as she presses you uncomfortably tight against her. Her gem pushing against you actually hurts.

“It's.. so nice to hear my name again.” The pink gem smirks, her face so close you can feel the words coming out of her mouth. 

You make a silent agreement with yourself to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible, or at least die trying. And as if this moment couldn't get any more uncomfortable, your stomach decides to growl loudly enough for the gem to notice. 

Spinel drops her hand from your face and disentangles herself from you, looking at you in mild confusion. 

You suddenly notice just how hungry you are as your stomach growls again, and it feels like it’s eating itself. You avoid making eye contact with the strange gem in front of you as you attempt to walk around her, done with this place, done with this gem, and done with everything. You’ll unpack all of your emotional shit later, if you ever get time to yourself.

A hand shoots out and grabs onto your arm, stopping you in your tracks. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Spinel spits out at you with a glare.

“I gotta eat.” You answer curtly, pushing her hand off your arm. Why the fuck is this bitch so touchy?

“Not alone, you aren't.” Her fist finds its way to your arm again, and this time her grip is much tighter than before. 

You sigh loudly, extremely annoyed at this point. Not only were you stranded on an alien planet, but you were stranded with this crazy ass gem who couldn't decide if she wanted to kill you or be your best friend. You want to scream.

“Okay, fine. But I need to find something NOW.” You turn from her and walk off, and she follows closely behind you, much to your irritation.

You look briefly around the clearing for anything that looks even remotely edible, and you find nothing. It’s dark out, but there’s enough moonlight to see that there’s really nothing but the now-destroyed warp pad here. Heading back from where you came is probably your best option, considering this area has only one pathway in and out.

On your way back you actually spot a couple bushes in the thick of the trees a few feet out that seem to be bearing some kind of berry. You think you'll take your chances, and meander your way through enough vines to nearly strangle yourself. Spinel is still holding your wrist, and she follows you closely. You wish you could ditch her somehow, because you're worried she'll murder you in your sleep. You think maybe later you can try to find an opportunity to escape her somehow. 

The berries on this bush are.. weird. They're a mix of blues and oranges which is kinda wild, but you're so hungry you don't even care. You pick a couple off the bush, and hold them up to your face to sniff them.

"What are those?" The gem next to you asks.

"No idea. Don't care at this point though." You reply, and shovel a couple into your mouth.

They burst in between your teeth, and they taste.. not great, you can't lie. But you're hungry, and they seem alright, so you scarf down enough to placate your stomach. You grab another handful to bring with you to the ruins you woke up in, aka your makeshift shelter. Spinel is watching you with curiosity, and almost looks like she wants to try the berries herself.

You move around her carefully - you don’t want to agitate her again, and you don’t want to give her any indication that you were fine with her as well. Nearly tripping over the heavy foliage, you walk back to the narrow pathway so you can attempt to rest for the night. It’s getting colder, and you only wore long sleeves and jeans today. You quietly curse yourself for not wearing a sweater today like you were going to originally.

“What was that?” The gem asks from behind you. 

“Nothing.” You reply. Of course she heard you.

“Are you keeping secrets from me?” She stops, and grips your arm tightly. You turn around to face her.

“No, first of a-” You feel something coming up and slam your hand over your mouth. You hurl against the tree next to you. Christ, it tastes worse coming back up. You empty the contents of your stomach on the ground, gripping the tree for support.

You feel a hand on the back of your neck, gently grabbing your hair away from your face. You feel fucking awful, but you have enough in you to be pissed that she thinks she can touch you like this. After a few more dry heaves, you feel like it’s stopped enough. Leaning against the tree to steady your breathing, you finally find enough strength to push her hand away from you, and you walk off angrily to the ruins. She’s holding your arm again - of fucking course.

You don’t know if you have any strength in you to continue to find any sort of food source tonight. It might be best for you to rest for a couple hours, and get up when it’s lighter out. The temperature is also rapidly declining, and you worry if you can’t find some source of warmth, you’ll freeze to death before you can even get out of this place.

It only takes you a couple minutes to get back to where you were before you ventured out. You’re miserable, pissy, cold, and you feel like absolute shit. And it doesn’t help that the single being to get you into this entire mess is standing next to you like you should be grateful to her for this. It’s fucking insane.

You head back inside the hole you came out of earlier, but not before grabbing a couple large leaves off the weird palm trees to make yourself a makeshift cot. Maybe you can salvage some kind of warmth for yourself..

“Whatcha doin?” Spinel has the gall to ask beside you. You stare at her.

“I’m going to sleep.” You reply, moodily.

“Why?” 

“Because humans need rest to recuperate.” You aggravatedly sigh, and lay a large leaf down in the corner, away from the vines with the hissing flowers. You sit down on it, and Spinel moves to join you.

“Okay uh, can you.. Not. You can sleep over there.” You say, and point to the opposite side of the wall.

“Why would I do that if you’re right here?” She squints at you.

“Personal space?” You glare at her, and shiver from the cold creeping up on you.

“And that is?” She scoffs at you. “Who cares. And besides, you look cold.”

"Yeah, I'm good. I'll be fine right here by myself." You pull up your other two leaves over you to protect yourself. Like somehow she can't just rip these apart and strangle you to death if she wanted. She stares at you for a moment, and then sits down right next to you. Her leg is pressing against yours.

"I'm not going anywhere. I don't want you running away on me." She states, determinedly. 

Oh, great. You don't even get to have the private emotional breakdown like you wanted. 

Today sucks.

"Whatever. Don't touch me." You huff, and roll over to your side. It's cold, now. Decently cold, actually. It was humid when you woke up some time ago, but in the last half an hour or so it got significantly chilly. You seriously hate this planet. Your abdomen is sore from the violent vomiting before, and your whole body just aches in general. You still feel the pain on the side of your face from your flesh wound from earlier. You haven't felt this shitty in a long time.

You're lost in thought when you feel Spinel slowly wrap an arm around your stomach, and leans against your back. You freeze instantly.

"What did I just say?" You hear yourself say out loud. 

"Nothing I have to listen to." She says from behind you, and tightens her arm around your middle.

Well, there goes your other half-baked plan of possibly sneaking away from her.

You sigh in aggravation, and reside yourself to trying to sleep. It's proving to be difficult though, because your mind won't stop swimming with thoughts and unease about the gem against you. You don't know anything about her aside from her name, and that she took you to be her best friend, whatever the fuck that actually means. You still have no idea why she came to kill Steven earlier, or how she knew of him in the first place, considering you've known him half his life and you've never seen her before. Or even mentioned. But somehow, she knows him.

You feel some warmth coming from her, and try not to lean into it. You hate her. Your life was going great before all of this. You miss your bed, you miss your sweater, you miss the food you bought earlier and left on the counter. 

You miss your home. You miss the gems. 

You miss Steven.

Sighing again out loud, you pull your leaves closer to you. You'll deal with other things in the morning if you don't die in your sleep. Your eyes droop heavily, weariness from the day catching up to you. Sleep comes to you eventually.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it'll get places, i promise.

You wake up several hours later with a migraine. You don't even want to open your eyes as you groan silently inside your head. Everything hurts terribly. You lay there for a few moments, and move your arms to massage your temples. The pressure against your skin helps, but you still feel quite a bit of the pressure inside your skull.

You don't even know what time it is. You look around you to realize there's a bit of light. Adjusting yourself slightly, you move your arms in front of you. You.. realize that Spinel is holding your center tightly, and you can’t move. You can’t even tell if she’s sleeping or not, so you lay there quietly for a moment to gauge her breathing. It’s.. steady enough, so you’re pretty sure she’s asleep. You try to move her arms away from you ever so slightly, and she tightens them and clears her throat. You freeze.

“Uhh,” You say out loud. “Can you stop touching me now? I kind of need to go to the bathroom.”   
  
“..you tryin’ to escape me?” She finally says after a few moments. You sigh aggravatedly out loud at her.

“No. How could I even get very far? You’re right here.” She makes a noncommittal grunt at that, but doesn’t make an effort to move. God you can't stand her. You don’t think you could even be friends with her under normal circumstances, nonetheless being forced into a friendship with a murderous clown against your will with no chances to escape. The sooner you can find a way off this miserable rock, the better. “I’m not joking. Let me go so I can pee.”

“Fine. I’m coming with you, though.” She replies, and moves her arms enough so you can fling her limbs off you and sit up. You turn around to see her staring at you, and you wonder if she watched you sleep. You fight off the shiver even though you’re a bit creeped out at the prospect.

“Please don’t tell me that you’re going to watch me.” You shoot her a look, and she raises an eyebrow.

“Watch you what?” She asks, and you fight off another groan of frustration. Fuck all of this.

“Nothing.” You exhale, and get up to go outside to relieve yourself. Spinel follows you, of course. Cursed gem, this one. Why couldn’t you have been taken by a Pearl instead, you think to yourself. This entire ordeal would’ve been a lot easier to deal with.

It’s so bright outside once you actually walk out, you feel like you haven’t seen light in forever. It takes a second for your eyes to adjust, but once they actually do you nearly open your mouth in shock at the state of this sun. It's freaking huge, for one. Like, several sizes bigger than the sun you're used to seeing. This one is also red, and something about it doesn't sit right with you.

You really gotta get off this planet.

"You ever see a sun like this?" You turn to face her.

"No. This one's weird." She squints at it. Not very helpful, then.

"Okay well, don't watch. I'm serious." You say, and lean your side against a nearby tree. She turns her head slightly to not face you. Whatever, good enough you guess.

You slip your pants off, but fumble for a second due to an item being in your front pocket. You pull the small object out and your heart drops for a moment. And then it picks back up rapidly. It's blue and bird shaped, and tied to a keyring. It's.. it's the small tracking beacon that you have matching with Steven. You.. you can't believe your luck. You never have this on you anymore.

Many years ago when you started going out on missions with the crystal gems, Steven used to beg and cry about having you not come with. He was so worried constantly, even though you were extremely safe with the gems, so you promised him you'd get something to make him feel better. And you got both yourself and him matching beacon keychains. So if you ever got lost, or something went wrong, you always had a way for him to find you. You stopped carrying yours regularly years ago since Steven started joining in on the gem missions, and mainly had it on your keyring for decoration and sentimental reasons. It must've fell off and into your pocket somehow. Now to just find a high enough hill to place this upon without Spinel noticing..

You realize that you've been quiet for a decent amount of time, and finish up your business before Spinel realizes anything.

Well. You kind of have a tiny smidge of hope now. You walk over to the gem, and she turns to regard you.

"Did that lighten your mood? You look almost cheerful." She says to you, and raises her eyebrow in question. You clear your throat. Fuck, you forgot your face shows everything.

"No, I'm actually extremely hungry and miserable right now." You reply coldly. You hope she's not suspicious of anything. "I'm gonna try and find some food for myself. Since you know, I'm an organic being and I need sustenance to survive." You glare at her, and she's not even paying any attention to you. 

You try a different path this time since it's light out and you can actually see. Spinel's clinging to your arm of course, because why not. It's not like you can fly off this planet by yourself. You wander about for nearly twenty minutes before you find a tree with some long cylinder-like fruit? You hope it's a fruit. You pull one down and have to snap it off the tree, which was weirdly difficult. The outside feels strange, like there's a fine film of.. something similar to wax on the outside.

Spinel pulls one down as well, and turns it around in her hands. You bring it up to your face to sniff it, and it seems okay? The surface seems soft enough. You're about to bite into it when Spinel rips the one in her hands in half with a quick snap, and the weirdest looking slime pours out of it in a murky brown color. It's absolutely repugnant smelling.

"I wouldn't eat this." She says, and drops the fruit to the ground. "Doesn't smell great."

"No shit, really?" You reply sarcastically, rolling your eyes. "It looked delicious to me." 

"Was just trying to help. I don't want you vomiting again like last time." She regards you with a look that you can't interpret, and this instantly pisses you off. How dare she act like she's doing you any fucking favors.

"I don't need your help." You force out, seething. She looks like she's about to say something, but you storm off in a huff before she can start. You don't care. 

You need to find food and water today, otherwise your chances of getting home to Steven alive and in one piece are close to zero. Your body aches, but you keep moving forward. You're determined to stay alive.

Spinel is still following behind you, and she isn't holding your arm this time. You push a bunch of vines out of the way of what looks like an overgrown path elsewhere, and you spoke too soon. Or, thought too soon, because she's wrapped her hand around yours this time. Ugh.

You pass by a lot of different types of bushes with similar berries like the ones from before, but you aren't taking your chances with those. You risk faster dehydration if you vomit any more. Your stomach grumbles at the thought of sustenance, and you feel like you might start chomping on leaves soon. You.. realize something with that train of thought. You've only sought out plant-life as a food source so far, completely ignoring any kind of animal that you could possibly eat.

You realize that you haven't seen any animals at ALL on this planet so far. That's strange. I mean, obviously for a complicated ecosystem like this there has to be creatures of some sort around, right? You've really only been here for a day, so you can't really be sure, but.. you're lost in thought when Spinel tugs your arm, and you nearly trip forward.

"What the fuck?" You say out loud. 

"I think there's something edible over here." She says, nodding over to this area through the thick trees. You walk over to where Spinel is standing to see what she's looking at.

You can see trees with different fruit on it this time than the others, and you'll take your chances with this one. 

"Let's hope this one doesn't poison me." You say with a shrug, and make your way over to the couple of trees nearest to you.

Looking up, the lowest hanging fruit are close to 15ft off the ground. They're green and yellow colored, and shaped like some kind of eggplant/durian hybrid. You hope it smells better than the other 'foods' you have discovered so far. You walk around the tree with Spinel still holding your hand, trying to find an easy spot to climb. There isn't even a viable foot holding that you can reach with your hands. You look at the other trees nearby, and they're all shaped the same. Tall, with smooth trunks that are completely useless to climbing. Great. 

You look around you to see if you can find any rocks or sticks to knock some down with, and see a decent sized branch on a low enough tree to grab. Sweet. You grab it to break it off, and it snaps off the tree pretty easily. When you turn around, Spinel's already got several fruit in her arms, and is grabbing another down. Oh right. You forgot. She can stretch herself at will. Why the fuck didn't she say anything before? You're nearly seething with rage, but decide to push it down to deal with your hunger instead. You walk back over to Spinel, and she hands you a fruit. You turn it around in your hands, gauging it's feel and smell. It seems alright. Better than the others, anyway. 

It's soft to the touch, so you tear into it with your hands carefully, ripping the fleshy skin apart easily. It's ripe, and smells nice, and the flesh inside looks good enough to make your mouth water. But you're not a fool, so you pull out a small chunk and place it inside your mouth. It tastes good, actually. Kinda lacks flavor, but you don't really care at this point. It doesn't make you vomit immediately. You wait a minute or two, making sure your stomach isn't going to retch this, and continue eating it slowly to not upset your stomach.

You don't realize that Spinel has been watching you carefully through all of this, and it’s right then that you notice that she probably doesn't know a thing about humans or organic beings at all. With your stomach steadily being filled and you've now got a bit of energy, your anger from earlier returns. She brought you to this planet with the idea of keeping you trapped here but didn't even bother to see if you could even SURVIVE. Your attention is back on her, rage clear in your eyes. 

“Did you even think for one single, miserable second about how I was suppose to survive out here?” You say, voice nearly shaking in fury. “Do you even know what a human needs to live?” 

Spinel seems taken aback for only a second before her eyebrows furrow.

"What were you going to do if I couldn't find any food and died?” You're walking closer to her. "What if I ate something that poisoned me? What if I touched something and my skin melted off? What if something attacked me and I bled out? What would you have done!? Left my body to rot on this planet, leaving you alone with it?!" Her eyes flicker with emotion that quickly turns to anger, and at this point you're standing in front of the gem, glaring up at her. You jam a finger into her chest, just to the side of her gem. “Steven would never know what happened to me, my family would never get answers. Do you even know a single FUCKING thing about humans!?” 

Spinel has the nerve to look down at you with aggravation on her face as she jabs a finger back into your chest, pushing you backwards.

“Listen here, human,” Spinel says the last word with a sneer. “I searched through several planets to find you one with adequate shelter and food, because I'm a good friend.” She jams her finger into your chest again to make a point. “So if I were you, I would be a little more GRATEFUL.” 

You scoff at her, placing a hand over where her finger had hit. 

“OH! WOW! YOU'RE SO RIGHT!!" You throw your hands into the air dramatically. “Thank you SO MUCH for stranding me on this SHITHOLE planet with a HOMICIDAL MANIAC.” You pointedly look to her to emphasize that she's the maniac. “I am so ETERNALLY GRATE-” 

Her hand shoots out, slamming your torso against the tree behind you, cutting off your supply of air. Several pieces of fruit fall from the tree above, thunking against the jungle floor around you. 

“You know, you're not being a very good friend.” She draws out, holding you in place. With the wind knocked out of you and you being pressed into the tree behind you, you can barely gasp an intake of breath. “ 

"Clearly you know nothing about being friends with anyone." You manage to choke out. Her grip on you tightens, your ribs squeezing painfully. You blink, seeing spots in your vision, your heart beating ever so loudly.

“You don’t know me. I was MADE to be a friend. I WOULD know what I’m talking about.” She spits out at you.

“You were what?” You barely manage to say, and she loosens her grip on you slightly. You take in several gasps of air.

“Nothing. You wouldn’t know.” She hisses angrily.

“What do you mean, made to be a friend!” You question her, and she drops her hand from your torso.

“I'm not talking about this. We're done here.” She retorts, and spins around to storm off. Your jaw drops as you watch her stomp off into a pathway you’ve never been. 

Wow. Very mature.

You pat yourself down for a sec to make sure you’re okay, and honestly, your ribs really do hurt. You hope she didn’t fracture them, because booooy, that would suck. Your arms feel like they're starting to bruise already. You grab as many fruit your pockets and arms can hold, and set off to the pathway Spinel went through.

What the actual fuck was she talking about back there? Made to be a friend? You can barely manage to walk and carry the fruit in your arms, several keep jumping out already and you have to stop and pick them back up. You took note of where this area was, and you're pretty sure you're still within the vicinity of your shelter.

You don't make it very far when you walk directly into something, spilling your arms contents everywhere. It's.. Spinel.

"Uh.. the hell?" You say out loud and look up to see Spinel staring at something. You follow her line of sight to see a.. cave of some sort on the side of this cliff. "What is that?" 

"I don't know." She says in aggravation, and stalks off over to the opening. You follow suit.

It's a large entrance, about 11-12 feet tall if you could guess. The outer edges are weirdly smooth. This cave almost seems man-made in nature, but there's something about it that tells you not so much. You can't place it yet, though. The cave seems to be pretty deep, as well. You can't see much, other than rocks and dirt and some dead leaves.

"Weird. You think the gems that were here did this?" You question out loud, not really expecting an answer. 

“...No.” She says, almost hesitantly. “I don’t know what this is.” She looks like she’s about to walk into the cave, but second guessed herself and spins around to face you. “Gem stuff is different from this.”

“Hm, well.. whatever. It doesn’t matter. I still need to find water before dusk, and it’s mid afternoon, if I’m going by this sun’s position.” You say, and wipe your brow. It’s humid, and you feel gross. You don’t really want to stick around to figure out this planet’s mysteries, either.

You walk off, not caring if Spinel follows you or not. She can figure herself out. You’ve got shit to do, and she’s of no use to you other than her ability to stretch like earlier. You keep along the path you’ve been following, looking around occasionally to find any more food or something helpful. Most of the trees around you are the same type, other plantlife breaking it up here and there. There has to be a water source nearby, because you’ve been so parched you feel like a raisin. Ugh.

You pass by an area with a lot of rocks off to the side, and you can hear something. The closer you get to it, the more it sounds like running water. Just your luck!! You run over to it, and there’s a bit of a drop off, but the view is absolutely amazing. 

You spot a small waterfall off to the side, and a decent sized lake in this clearing. The plant life around the edges of the water look nearly ethereal with how the vines and flowers are floating on top of the water. This looks like an oasis. You carefully place all of your fruit down off to the side by a larger rock, and run down the side to get to the water.

You get up to it, and bend down to test it with your finger first. Gotta make sure it ain’t acid water, you know? Never know with this place. It feels fine and it isn’t burning your skin, so you’re taking it as a good sign. You cup some with your hands and bring it up to your face to take a quick sniff before drinking. It smells a bit off, but you’re sure it’s just because you’re on this strange planet.

You take several small gulps, making sure your stomach is okay with it. You sit at the edge of the lake, resting your feet for a second. You feel.. a bit relieved. Okay. You’ve got food, you’ve got water, you’ve got shelter.. and you have a possible way off this planet. Maybe. You still have to find a good place to deposit the tracker. You hope Steven remembers that his matching keychain exists in the back of his bedside drawer. You.. you hope that they’re trying to find you. It’s been more than a full day, and you logically KNOW that them getting to you would take a bit of time.. but you’re worried regardless. You’ve never been in a situation so hopeless before. You’ve camped a lot, sure, and you’ve been on planets not exactly suitable for human life. But not something like this, and not with an unfamiliar, wild, mood-volatile gem. 

Speaking of said gem. What she said earlier is still on your mind, and you still know nothing about her other than her name and how weirdly defensive she is about friendship. You don’t know about her age, what she was doing, why she was attacking Steven, how she KNOWS Steven.. none of it makes any sense. You’ll get your answers eventually, or you’ll get off this planet. Without her. She can stay here until that sun goes supernova for all you give a shit.

You’re lost in thought when you see ripples across the water, and you look up. There’s nothing in the water that you can see.. Ah. Off to the side.

There’s a little.. animal, drinking water a good 60 feet away from you. It’s hideous. It looks like a crossbreed of a platypus, a duck, and a goose. How unfortunate. You watch it for a few minutes, as it doesn’t see you sitting there and you can safely observe it. It doesn’t really do anything other than drink water and look around. It seems almost peaceful, with dusk setting in and the sun edging away over the trees. So there are small animals here, after all. Huh. Wonder why you hadn’t seen any before.

You’re sitting there quietly when something moves behind you, making the strange creature let out a squawk and run to hide in the underbrush. 

You see Spinel’s feet walk up to your side, and internally sigh. Couldn’t even get adequate alone time. You were kinda hoping you could sit here alone to zone out and plan a different way to get off this planet as a backup plan. Well, whatever. You’ll plot later. 

“We should head back. It’s getting dark, and I’d like to gather shit for a possible fire to keep myself warm tonight.” You say, and stand up. Ugh, everything hurts, and the heavier gravity is fucking with your knees. You lean down to brush off your clothes from any dirt left on you, and stretch your back. Spinel’s watching you quietly.

“Ya didn’t leave.” She states. You stare at her, a bit dumbfounded.

“Where would I honestly go, Spinel?” You sigh. “Also I’m not stupid enough to wander off right before it gets dark. I don’t know what’s out there.” You turn around to head to your ruins that you call a shelter, and gather your food back up. You’ll figure out a way to transport some water later.

Spinel gathers a couple of the fruit in her own arms, like she’s trying to be helpful. You glare daggers at the back of her head. You turn around before leaving to take in the scenery again, and burn it into your memory. You’ll be back tomorrow.

It takes nearly twenty minutes to get back to camp, it’s almost completely dark out now, and the cold is setting in. Once you’re back, you walk into the ruins to set down your food into a corner. You look to your makeshift bedding from last night, and figure you’ll try to grab more leaves once you’re done with your fire supply gathering.

You head back outside to see Spinel rummaging around in some bushes, doing who knows what. You roll your eyes, and walk back into the jungle line of trees to find some dry foliage to burn. There’s a tree you can see that’s half dead, so you peel some of its flaking bark off, as well as any of the dry looking branches. You spot a few branches on the ground as well, and gather those too. 

You come back and forth a few times to get enough of a stash going. You don’t know how long you’ll be on this planet, but you’re the type of person that likes to be prepared if possible.

You wipe your hands on your jeans, proud of the pile you’ve managed to build. Spinel comes into the ruins beside you, with something in her arms.

“Uhh, what’s that?” You ask her. She’s just holding a pile of twigs and moss.

“Kindling.” She says, and raises her eyebrows like it’s obvious. 

Huh. That’s.. helpful of her. You don’t know how you feel about this, so you just tell her to put it on the ground next to your pile.

“Thanks, I guess.” You say awkwardly. “I’m gonna go find leaves to make my bedding a bit better. I’m not running off, okay?” You head outside again, but not before you take a quick glance at Spinel standing there. Her expression was strange - one you haven’t seen her make before. But you have more pressing concerns right now, so you wave that out of your mind.

You can see your breath outside now. This weather is absolutely wild, you can’t believe the temperature would just drop so quickly like that. You’re shivering, so you work quickly to gather as many leaves as possible. You spot a couple of large ones, and catch yourself getting excited. You scoff out loud at yourself. Getting excited over leaves now? What’s next, getting excited when your food doesn’t make you vomit? Excited that Spinel hasn’t strangled you yet? How low will your standards go?

When you get back inside with your findings, you see Spinel over by your makeshift bed. Except it’s piled.. Comfortably high now. Like a foot off the ground, what the hell?

“Is this okay?” She finally speaks up.

“I was gone maybe five minutes, and you did all this?” You ask her, and she nods. The fuck, you’re almost touched. 

But then you remember she’s trapped you here and she doesn’t actually care about you at all. 

You set down your leaves in the pile, and grab the stuff you brought in to make a fire in the middle of this room. You place a couple rocks in a circle as Spinel watches you, putting sticks around in a cone-like formation. You put in the kindling as well, and grab the sticks you’re using to start the fire with.

You’ve made fires using this method before, but it’s been a while, and you’re rusty. You feel like you’ve got performance anxiety with Spinel watching you, but after a few tries (and a few expletives) you succeed in building a small fire. You sigh out loud in relief, and gather a few more sticks to build the fire with, placing them on the pile. It seems to be burning nicely.    
  
You sit by it for a few minutes, watching it to make sure it’ll be fine and not fall over, and to also get warm. Spinel sits beside you, much to your annoyance.

You gather your thoughts before succumbing to the heavy pull of sleep. If you can wake up in the middle of the night and sneak away from Spinel somehow, you can place the tracker on a hill nearby. You have a couple places in mind already. And then maybe you’ll be rescued, and you’ll never have to see this gem ever again, and you can sleep in a real bed. And take a shower. And eat real food. You sigh again, and Spinel glances at you.

She watches you for a considerable amount of time, enough for you to get irritated and get up.

“I’m gonna sleep.” You state, and walk over to plop on the bed. You feel like all these leaves don’t make any difference, comfort-wise. It isn’t as cold as before though.. so that’s a plus.

You hear a scuffle behind you, and you hope Spinel is getting up to leave. You feel a presence behind you, and reside to groaning inside your head. Ugh! Whatever! You’ll pass out soon anyway, weather she’s there or not.

You feel Spinel get in bed behind you, and she wraps her arm around your middle. 

“I’m not going to leave. I told you. You can stop touching me.” You say to the person behind you. She grunts in response.

“I’m not sure I trust you yet.” She mumbles. If you could scream right now, you would.

You lay there for several long moments, letting sleep drift to you. 

Your thoughts are heavy with yearning to escape, and your eyes close with the intention of waking up in just a few short hours.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tee hee

Several times you wake up in the middle of the night, and Spinel is holding you closely. You keep falling back asleep in hope she’ll shift or move during the night, so you can take your chance to sneak away. Eventually you wake up again, and surprisingly she’s not holding you, but instead softly pressed against your side.

You can hear her breathing in even intervals, and you think she’s actually asleep. Huh. So this one sleeps. The only other gems you know sleep are Amethyst, and Steven, although he’s half human so he gets an excuse. You test how much of a light sleeper she is by shifting slightly away from her, careful to not disturb her. Her breathing is still the same, so you guess you’re in the clear.

You sit up carefully, and glance at Spinel’s sleeping face.

She’s.. weirdly peaceful, here. Her face looks soft, and her hair has fringe framing around the sides of her face, like her pigtails are getting loose. You watch her gem raise and lower slightly, in tune with her breathing. With the fire long gone, the only light is from the moons above, some of the light seeping through the cracks in the stone. You realize you’ve been staring at her for a while, and move to get up quietly. 

Carefully watching her as you move away, you rub your arms from the cold as you walk outside the ruins. It’s freezing. Not that you’d admit this to yourself, but you’d rather be next to Spinel right now as she’s your only heat source. At least she’s useful for something.

Once you’re outside, you look up to observe the moons. It’s so weird seeing this, honestly. You fill your lungs with the cold, crisp air, and set out to one of the taller hills you saw by the lake you were at earlier. Should only take you twenty minutes or so.

You hope Spinel doesn’t wake up while you’re gone, but if she does, you could always say that you left to go to the bathroom or something. You should be back in less than an hour. It’s seriously so cold that you have to keep warming your hands with your breath, and even that’s not doing much. You make quick pace to try to keep yourself warm, because you’d rather not freeze to death out here.

You’re only a couple minutes into your small journey when off to the side of the path ahead of you, you see some rustling in the underbrush, and make a full stop. You hold your breath in to make sure whatever it is, it moved on its own accord, and not because it saw you. You think you see a creature’s feet moving around, so you stand very still, hoping it’ll leave quickly.

It seems a lot more of the creatures come out in the evening, for some reason, and hide during the day? They can’t all be nocturnal. You watch it rustling in the bushes for a few moments, before popping out onto the pathway you’re standing on, about twenty feet in front of you. It’s uh.. It’s weird. It’s canine in nature, and looks kind of like a hyena. There are lots of stripes on the side of its flank, and they look to be three-toed. This guy also seems kind of small - about 2 feet in height, almost like it’s a baby. 

You hope it’s not a baby. Its mother better not be nearby. 

Almost like it knows you’re there, it snaps its head to you, and it SCREECHES loudly. Oh fuck this, you are not sticking around for whatever comes to this things aid. You break out into a run, the creature squawking and jumping out of your way as you run past it - and you keep running without stopping. You’re gonna book it to this hill, and not look behind you.

You’re completely out of breath when you finally get to the hill, but thankfully nothing had seemed to chase you. Not that you had turned around to check. There’s a single large tree on this hill, and you can see quite a bit of the view around you. You can see your ruins, and the lake, and you can also see another structure in the distance by the edge of the jungle, next to those rocky chasms. You should go check that out later. Maybe you can find something useful there, you hope.

You pull the matching keychain out of your pants pocket, and place it against the base of the tree, off to the side. You cover it in a bit of grass just to be safe. You don’t want any of the animals here to walk off with it, or worse.. destroy it. You click it on, and watch the tiny light blink twice, meaning it was on and active. Cool.

Standing up, you look around you again to take in the view before leaving. It’s weirdly.. pretty out here at night. You can spot glowing bugs flickering around the edge of the lake, and in the trees. It reminds you of the times you used to see fireflies in the dead of summer, and all of a sudden you’re extremely homesick. You miss Steven, and you hope he’s okay. You hope the rest of the gems are, too. 

How long will it take for them to find you? Where even are you? How far away from Earth? You don’t even know what star system you’re in, considering you don’t recognize any of these constellations like.. at all. Maybe you’re lucky, and this planet is vaguely neighboring the milky way. You wish you had some form of control over this situation.

It’s quiet and cold, and the bark of this tree feels slimy to the touch, so you stop leaning against it. It’s time for you to leave and get back, anyway. 

Several feet behind you, you hear a twig snap, and you freeze on your feet.

Oh.. oh god. You’re gonna need to think fast, considering you have no idea what’s behind you, and you don’t know if making any sudden moves will make it attack you.

Heart beating loudly in your chest, very slowly you attempt to move your face to glance at what’s behind you, but you find yourself slammed against a tree for the second time in 48 hours, breath leaving you instantly. 

“YA TRYIN’ TO LEAVE ME HUH? WELL I’M NOT LETTING THAT HAPPEN.” You hear Spinel before you can even look at her. Your head hurts, as it got knocked against the tree as well, and you’re seeing stars for a second before you can find your bearing.

“Spinel, I wasn’t trying to leave!” You manage to choke out.

“And why the HELL WOULD I BELIEVE THAT? ALL THE WAY OUT HERE.” She presses you harder against the tree, trying to make her point.

“I told you. There’s literally NOWHERE I’D BE ABLE TO RUN TO, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!” You are sick and tired of her treating you like this. You’re tired of being physically assaulted every time she decides she wants to. She’s so fucking obsessed with the idea of you running away from her.

“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!” Her face contorts with fury, her hands shaking in anger against your shoulders. 

You’re done with this situation. You attempt to bring your arms up, and with as much strength you can muster, you place your palms on either side of her gem to push her off of you. She steps backwards in shock, not exactly expecting you to fight back.

“I’m sick and fucking tired of you ASSAULTING me whenever you think I’m doing something wrong! How in the deepest pits of HELL you think we can be friends is BEYOND ME!!” You spit out at her, hands balling into fists.

“I SHOULD’VE KILLED STEVEN UNIVERSE LIKE I PLANNED BECAUSE IT WOULD’VE BEEN EASIER THAN DEALING WITH YOU!” She screams out, and you’ve had it.

You’ve punched her in the face before you could think about the consequences of your actions, white hot fury the only thing running through your mind. She stumbles, hand clutching her cheek, and the look in her eyes makes you want to run.

“Doesn’t feel great, does it now?” You bring your eyes to hers in an unspoken challenge. She stares at you, both of you unmoving for several long seconds.

Faster than you can blink, she whips her fist at you, and you barely manage to dodge it as it whizzes past your face.

“God you’re such an awful friend. Where I come from, friends don’t fucking hurt each other!!” You yell at her, and bring your arms up so she can’t get to your face. “You’re supposed to be NICE to me!" 

"Dealin’ with you has been a miserable experience!!” She wipes her mouth, and looks like she’s about to attack you again. “I have done NOTHING but help ya, and all ya seem to be able to do is COMPLAIN!”

Ohhhhh my god she doesn’t fucking get it!!! You’re absolutely about to lose your mind with her. 

“ARE YOU SERIOUS!? ALL OF THIS IS AGAINST MY WILL!! I FUCKING HATE YOU! I’M NOT YOUR PET SPINEL, I’M A REAL PERSON WHO HAS FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS!!!” You can’t even seem to hold back anymore. Everything flies out of your mouth without any consideration behind it, but it’s been coming for a while. She’s visibly shaking with anger.

Spinel comes right up to you and you attempt to guard yourself from any further violence with your forearms, but she grasps your wrists with each of her hands. 

“The feeling is mutual.” She replies in a low voice, and pulls you to her chest. You can’t seem to look away from the anger in her eyes.

You struggle in her grip, and you can’t seem to get your arms free from her grasp. You’re starting to panic that you’re trapped, and she’s so close to your face you can feel her breath on your lips.

While all of this is happening, you are starting to realize everything is super quiet around you. Unnervingly so. 

And then, underneath your feet, you feel the ground shake.

“Uhh,” You manage to say out loud.

Spinel drops her arms from yours and looks wildly around you two as if there’s some physical monster nearby.

“What’s going on?” She asks you, like you somehow know more than her in this situation.

“Fuck if I know!” You reply, just as the rumbling stops abruptly. You look around, and things seem pretty unchanged. Okay.

“It stopped. Huh.”

“Weird. I wonder if the quakes here are like the ones on Earth.” You contemplate out loud. Silence befalls you two, mood from earlier completely vanished, and you take this chance to take a couple steps away from her.

“Hm.” She probably hasn’t a clue as to what you’re talking about.

There’s a strange whirring noise coming from what sounds like 60 feet away at most. Spinel’s gaze meets yours, and her facial expression changes to one of confusion. You have no idea what you’re hearing, but it stops after a few seconds.

“I have no idea what that was.” You say, and turn to follow the direction of the noise. It seems to be right around the bottom of the other side of this hill.

“..ya gonna follow that noise? What if it kills ya?” You hear her take a couple steps, following you. What the hell, why does she care?

“Look, that was really weird okay? We’ve been here for a bit but we’ve never felt or heard that before.” You’re making your way around the hill, climbing over several large rocks that seem to block a lot of the way on this side. You haven’t seen this many rocks all in one area at all so far. 

Spinel easily follows you, and it only takes you a minute to reach the bottom. 

“Uhhh.” She says, and you’re about to say the same thing.

The two of you come face to face with another one of these.. caves. Holes. Tunnel? This is super fucking strange.

“There’s another.. hole here?” You hear yourself say. “Why? Are you sure gems didn’t do this?”

“Yeah, I’m sure no gem did this.” She peers into the darkness, and takes a step in.

For some reason sirens go off in your head, and your hand snaps out to Spinel’s wrist. She turns to look at you with a raised eyebrow.

“Let’s not blindly go solving all our mysteries tonight, maybe?” The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you pull her out into the moonlight. 

“You’re the one that wanted to come here.”

“And I’d also like to leave now. This place makes me super uneasy.”

“Why? It’s just a cave.”

“It just gives me the creeps, okay? Let’s leave it at that.” You say as you turn around to leave, and hike it back up and around the hill. It’s cold as fuck, and when you get back up to the tree, you can see most of the jungle has now a thick layer of fog upon the ground.

“Ugh. I’m pretty sure I know how to get back.” She says, and you follow her in the vague direction that you know is the ruins. 

You’re both pretty quiet on the way back, and once you’re a good hundred or so yards away from the hill, you feel the ground trembling again. She looks at you, eyebrows raised in confusion.

“So soon again?" 

"Yeah, weird..” You reply, looking back towards the hill. The quakes stop after a good couple of seconds, and you shrug. “If this planet had any volcanic activity I feel like we’d be able to see any mountains nearby, but I’ve seen nothing. And I’ve tried scoping out this place as much as I could earlier.”

“I haven’t seen any either.” She regards you, and turns to keep walking. “We can figure out that later, anyway. It’s cold and we should be getting back." 

It’s almost like she cares about you.

You’re back within twenty minutes, and you pass out fairly quickly all things considered. 

-

Morning hits you like a slap to the face. 

Like.. literally.

You feel a sharp pang along the side of your face, and Spinel is shaking you awake.

"Will ya get up? Somehow you reopened the cut on your face while sleeping last night, and it’s bleedin’ all over now.”

You sit up, and cup your face with your palm, to your immediate regret. You pull your hand away to feel the wet of your blood on your skin, and see red streaking against your open hand.

“Ohhhh this is just my luck.” You say, and move to stand up. Immediately you’re feeling a bit lethargic, and sit back down on your pile of bedding.

“Can you sit still for a second?” Spinel moves away to grab something off to the side that you can’t see, and comes back into view shortly after.

She’s got crudely smashed bits of greens in her hand, and dips her thumb in, bringing bits up to your forehead. She smears the salve against your skin and you wince a bit, feeling the chunky solution against your face. 

“What are you doing?” You ask her bluntly. You’re confused as to why she’s even trying to help you.

“Making sure you don’t die of something stupid.” She says, biting her tongue between her teeth, getting the last bit against the edge of your eyebrow. She pulls her hand away, doing a once over glance upon your face. “Seems good enough for now.”

You look away, and mutter a quick thanks to her.

You still can’t trust her, despite this. 

But.. regardless of things, it’s probably in your best interest to go bathe. The water source you found yesterday - the lake, is your only option at this point.

“I think I’m gonna bathe myself. You’re not at all welcome to join, but you’re probably gonna come anyway, no matter what I say?” You ask offhandedly, getting up and stretching your legs.

“Ya think I’m gonna let you go off alone, considering what happened last night?” She replies, making sure to lock eye contact with you. You shrug in reply.

“Figured I’d ask.”

You get up, wincing at your skin pulling on the corners of your face. Shit, she’s right. It hurts, but there’s not much you can do about it. You’re trying to not be pissed and start another fight, considering she’s the one who did the damage to you in the first place. You’ll find the time to bring it up later anyway.

You stumble out of the ruins, discombobulated at the lack of decent sleep and blood loss, and walk towards the lake you discovered yesterday. 

It’s sweltering out, and it takes you a while to get over there. You grab a piece of fruit to eat on the way out, and Spinel follows you almost like a lost puppy to your destination. You don’t find yourself caring as much as you did earlier in the week.

Considering it’s been a couple days since you’ve been on this hell planet, you think you’re doing pretty okay, all things considered.

Once you reach the lake, Spinel wanders off to explore the edges of the plant life dipping into the lake. 

You.. obviously make a point to be away from her in general as you undress yourself. You’re aware enough to feel disgusting compared to your normal hygiene, and slowly wade into the lake, covering yourself in as much water as possible before she can even glance at your naked body. 

You sink until you’re level with the water’s surface, letting the water flow around you, reaching your shoulders. It’s a little chilly, but you’ve dealt with worse. You can manage. The water flows around your body, reaching your shoulders. You can feel the plants around your feet cling to your legs, and you struggle to shake them off. Obviously you have no soap, but you busy yourself washing off your built up sweat and dirt.

You look around you, realizing it’s been quiet for a while. You can’t see Spinel anywhere. Did she.. leave you alone? Holy fuck, thank god. 

Something touches your leg that’s clearly not a plant, and you nearly scream. You kick whatever it is, and it grabs your leg. You actually scream this time, and Spinel pops out of the water fully clothed, glaring at you.

“What was that for?” She spits out angrily, water dripping down her hair and face. 

“Why the fuck would you scare me like that!?” You quickly cover your breasts, heartbeat speeding up. No one’s ever seen you naked in broad daylight like this. 

“Was just lookin’ at somethin’ shiny at the bottom. Turned out to be a rock, much to my disappointment.” She gives you a look over, eyes trailing along your naked skin. You sink further into the water.

“Hey, can you not stare? A bit self conscious here, Spinel.” You try not to sound agitated, but you were hoping for some privacy.

“Self conscious? Why?” She raises an eyebrow in confusion.

“I’m naked in broad daylight. Could you like.. Go over there?” You make a point to look over to the shore. She doesn’t quite follow. She’s either actually oblivious, or obtuse on purpose. 

“I think I’m fine here.” She replies blunty, and you internally scream.

Whatever. You turn around and go back to washing yourself, attempting to ignore Spinel’s presence. Sinking down and submerging yourself completely, you do your best to scrub out any dirt and sweat out of your hair and scalp, already feeling a hundred times better than an hour ago. You come back up for air, gasping a little as you were holding your breath for quite some time. Water drips down your face, and you wipe your face off and squeeze the water out of your hair. Thankfully, the stuff on your forehead is still intact, albeit soaked now. 

You feel a hand on your lower back, and you freeze.

“What are you doing?” You say to Spinel, and feel her fingers graze your skin a little lower, and you shiver involuntarily.

“What’s this?” She presses her hand into your skin. She’s probably talking about your scar on your lower back, now that you remember.

“It’s a scar. Also, can you not touch me?” You swim a little further, but her hand stays put on your back.

“What’s it from?” She asks, completely ignoring what you just said. It was from that one time you failed to protect Steven properly, but she doesn’t need to know that. Her fingers curiously trace the jagged line across your skin that you know is there.

“None of your business. Now hands off.” You curtly reply, and grab her by the wrist, stopping her from touching you. Her eyes trail back up to yours, and she fixes you with a.. challenging look. Several seconds pass, and none of you move. She jerks her hand free, and turns around to swim back to the shore.

Okay.. what the fuck was that. You try not to think about it as you finish up, and when you turn to head back to shore, you don’t see Spinel anywhere. Whatever, better for you anyway.

You grab your clothes, and struggle to put them back on since you’re still kind of wet, even in this sweltering heat. It’s extra hot today, and you’re considering just hanging out in the lake to cool off all day.

But.. you have several things to do, including acquiring more food, and finding a way to store water somehow. You almost fall over trying to put your pants back on, and hear a snicker from a dozen or so feet away.

Spinel’s leaning against a tree, and watching you in amusement. Bitch. You glare at her.

You finish buttoning your pants, and huff out a sigh. You turn to leave, and you don’t wait for her to follow you.

-

A few days pass, and you manage to gather a few different types of fruit, discover two more water sources, and explored a bit more of the jungle that you hadn’t been to. You’d like to set out to that structure you saw a few miles away, but you’d prefer to be a little more prepared, and you’re almost set. You should be able to go out either tomorrow, or the next day if everything goes right.

You’re hoping it’s an intact gem base, honestly. You’re anxious about there possibly being not only supplies that you could use, but also maybe a way to send Steven and the gems a message. Or some tech to make a ship usable if there’s one? There’s a little bit of hope.

You managed to reach a small truce with Spinel. It took quite a long discussion and you almost socked her in the face again, but you both came to the conclusion that no matter what you do, there isn’t really a way for you to escape even if you tried. So she doesn’t follow you absolutely everywhere now. You still don’t know why she’s so.. adamant on you not leaving her alone. Clearly, she can deal with shit by herself, and doesn’t need you for anything. She doesn’t even like you as a person, so what’s her deal?

Spinel is probably back at the shelter, doing who knows what. She said she’d be going out to find something specific later, but if you’re going to be honest, you didn’t really care so you didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to what she was saying.

Currently, you’re out again gathering more supplies for the fire. The last two days have been extra cold at night, and the only thing keeping you from freezing to death is an active fire, and Spinel. Not that you’d admit that to her. She doesn’t need to know.

It’s extremely hot out today, and you’re sweating just.. existing outside right now. This might be the hottest day you’ve had so far on this planet actually.

You’re out in a different area of the jungle this time, in a completely unfamiliar area. You know at least the direction you came from, which is what’s most important. You’ve also managed to find a way to bring back a large amount of wood and sticks via tying them up in vines, and strapping them to your back. You feel resourceful, and you’re kind of proud of yourself.

You spend an hour or two foraging, and you aren’t exactly paying attention to much around you when you’re realizing that the temperature is cooling quite rapidly. Which is strange because it’s not quite evening yet, but late afternoon. You look up at the sky to see dark, giant clouds rolling in, and quickly pack up what you were grabbing. How did you not notice the weather changing? 

You hike your makeshift pack over your shoulder, and quickly walk back to your ruins. You do not want to be caught in the rain, as you don’t have a change of clothes.

Less than 5 minutes pass, and already it’s starting to pour. Shit. You hear thunder rolling in the distance, and take a couple deep breaths. You hate storms. You’re actually completely terrified of thunder and lighting, but you’ve kept that hidden your whole life. Not even Steven knew.

It’s nearly fucking freezing now. Lighting is crackling all around you, and you’re shaking in terror, not from cold. You’re completely soaked to the bone. You pass by a familiar area and turn heel, and your foot slips out from under you and you drop to the muddy jungle floor like a sack of bricks, soaking your entire front, and getting mud all over yourself. You groan and wipe off your face, and about 20 feet to the right there’s a flash of light, and a tree nearly explodes from the lightning. You scream out in surprise.

Oh god, you’re nearly about to fucking cry.

The rain is coming down hard and fast, and you’re also being pelted with ice. You’re shaking so hard from the cold, and also fear, that you almost fall down again. You keep running out of pure adrenaline at this point. The storm is so fucking loud, it’s like being inside an airplane turbine.

Running the direction that you know is home, you do your best to keep the pack of wood steady on your back, as you need it now more than ever once you get back. You only had so much left from last night. The trees were swaying violently in the wind and rain, and you have to shield your face constantly from incoming branches.

Another five minutes pass, and now you know you’re completely lost. You might’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere back there, but you wouldn’t be able to tell now as the wind is blowing everything all over. You wring your hands anxiously, frozen for a moment while you think of what to do. You’re so fucking cold you feel like every bone is shaking in your body. The ice rain pelting your face, and the wind making you colder, it’s taking everything in you to not start crying. 

You can’t just stand here forever, but you don’t want to fuck yourself over even more by heading in an even further direction.

Your breathing picks up pace, and your chest is starting to hurt. You can feel yourself start to hyperventilate.

Suddenly, you feel a hand wrap around your arm, and you yelp out loud.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Spinel shouts at you, almost quiet against the wind. You steady yourself, and bite back the tears that almost started to spill. Thankfully you know you look like a mess already right now because of the storm.

“I got lost!!” You shout back, determined not to show your earlier emotions, and despite your quaking. 

She’s also soaking wet, with her hair plastered to her face, worry obvious in her eyes. She doesn’t look bothered at all by the weather. 

“Are you okay!?” The worry coming out in her voice, she leans closer to you.

“I’m fine!” You choke out. “Let’s just get back already.”

She nods, and leads you back a different direction from where you came. It only takes you two another ten minutes to find your way back, and you’re relieved to finally see your shelter.

When you get inside, you dump your pile of wet wood over by the rest of it. You’re dripping everywhere and shivering uncontrollably, and with shaking hands you try your best to wring your clothes out. 

Spinel’s trying to make a fire, and you’ve never felt more grateful for anything in your life. She turns to you and cocks an eyebrow.

“Ya gonna freeze to death if ya don’t take those off.” She says, eyes trailing the dripping clothes on your body.

“I’ll be fine.” You say, and still try to wring out your clothes. “I just gotta sit by the fire and I’ll dry off eventually.”

Lighting cracks outside, and you almost jump. Spinel watches you curiously, much to your aggravation.

“Not before your body’s temperature drops so much it dies.” She gives you a look. “I’ll be fine, because I can do this,” There’s a glow of light around her, and a flash, and now she’s completely dry. You forgot gems could do that. “But you can’t. So, off with the clothes.”

You glare at her. “No.”

“Do you want me to be the one to force them off ‘ya?” She glares back, and you force your mind to NOT go there.

“Touch me, and you die. The clothes aren’t coming off. I’m fine.” You’re trying to stop your body from shaking so much visibly, and failing.

Spinel finally gets the fire going, and walks over to the wood pile to put some extra on top. You scooch closer to the heat, trying to get yourself to dry quickly. She steps back over to you, and gives you a long look.

“Are we doin’ this the easy way, or the hard way?" 

"We’re doing this the uh.. 'let me do what I want’ way.” You cross your arms, unmoving in front of the fire.

“Hard way it is.” She says with a tisk of her tongue, and leans into your personal space, grabbing the hem of your shirt immediately. You yelp, and slam your hands down, forcing her hands away.

“Dude. It’s fine.” You say through your teeth, wanting nothing more than to be dry and home in your bed right now. 

“It ain’t. Give up already.” She grabs your arms with one hand and lifts you shirt up. The wet fabric clings to your skin, and you hear some threads snap. 

“Okay stop. Fine! Let me do it.” You huff out in irritation, not wanting her to literally rip your clothes apart. These are the only ones you have.

You carefully peel off your shirt, and can see Spinel watching you.

“Can you fucking not?” You spit out, cold and miserable right now. She scoffs and turns around. You take off everything but your underwear, because that’s a thin piece of fabric anyway and you’re not going to be absolutely ass naked right now. You grab the largest leaf in the pile to kinda cover your torso with, and sit down as close as you can to the fire.

“Don’t sit so close ya’ burn yourself.” She says, after a few moments of quiet. Well, silence actually, considering the raging winds outside.

“I’m not an idiot.” You grumble out, and she snorts at that. If you weren’t so cold right now, you’d punch her.

The fire warms your hands and feet, but the rest of your body is still violently shivering. At this point, burning yourself might be your only chance at warmth.

She looks at you for a while, sighs out loud, and pulls you into her arms. You struggle, and she holds you against her tightly.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now!? Let me go.”

“Nah. Ya’ gotta get warm somehow.” She replies and squeezes you closer, much to your aggravation. You sigh and decide to deal with it. She’s right, but you will never admit this to her.

Silence befalls you two, and you’re lost in thought while shivering for a few minutes before she speaks up again.

“Scared of thunderstorms, huh?” You look up to glare at her, and she looks slightly smug. You’ll murder her later.

“I’m not scared of them, asshole. They’re just loud and disconcerting.” You hiss out at her, gripping your leaf. It doesn’t really help, but you want it anyway.

“Oh, sure.” She simply replies like she doesn’t believe you at all even though she has no reason not to, and GOD she’s infuriating. 

“Yeah, well, you’re scared of being alone.” You narrow your eyes at her.

Her eyes snap to yours, and emotion passes that you don’t recognize on her. She masks it quickly.

“No I’m not.” Her eyes seem to challenge yours for a second, eyebrows furrowing.

“Then why are you so obsessed with me potentially leaving you?” You say all casual-like. She just stares at you for a solid couple of seconds.

“That’s none of your fuckin’ business.” She snaps her mouth shut, and her eyes purposefully look to the other side of the room.

What the fuck is her problem.

You sigh, deflating a little now that your body temperature is starting to rise, though you’re still dripping. The storm died down a little, wind still howling in the distance albeit quieter now, and you can hear your own heartbeats. 

You don’t know what you’re going to do the rest of the evening, but this storm might’ve fucked your plans to go out to the structure tomorrow. You’re seriously frustrated that life keeps throwing a wrench into your plans continuously. Maybe the jungle and mud won’t be so bad in the morning? You can hope.

You’re also worried about the wound on your face. You’ve been cleaning it to the best of your ability, but it still hurts a lot, and you’re worried it’s getting infected. Fuck your shitty luck.

It’s kind of a bit dark out now, and the you can see the silhouette of your shadows against the concrete. Watching the fire flicker your shadows, you glance back over to Spinel’s face, to see her only an inch from yours and staring at you intently.

“U-um.” You manage to stutter out.

She kisses you.


	5. Five

You pull away from her face nearly instantly in shock.

“What the fuck!?” You shout at her, and she looks just as dumbfounded as you feel. “Why the hell would you do that!?”

“Your face looked cold, I don’t know.” She states, and you slap her face before you can think about it. There’s a resounding echo across the room and she grabs your wrist, snapping her face back to yours. Her expression changes into a glare.

“Fucking try that one more time, and I’ll find a way to gut you.” You spit out with as much acid as possible.

“I hardly think what I did was deserving of that!” She growls out in anger.

“Ohh, you clearly don’t get it!” You try to move out of her arms, and she struggles to keep you in place.

“Sit still! You’re freezing and going to die if I can’t get ya warm!!”

“No! I don’t CARE! It’s better than SITTING IN HERE WITH YOU!” You shout loud enough to hear yourself echo outside. 

“You’d rather DIE than let me help you!?” Her grip on you tightens almost unbearably.

“YES!” You reply, not understanding how she doesn’t fucking get this. She stares at you incredulously for several long seconds. The wind is howling in the distance, and you still hear thunder very far away.

“Why the fuck do you hate me so much!?” She spits out between her teeth, and she looks pissed but also strangely hurt. You stare back at her.

“Let’s get this fucking straight, SPINEL,” You enunciate her name harshly. “Because I’ve got a long list, and you don't quite seem to understand this. You came to Earth and without introducing yourself, you immediately try to kill the ONE person that I would gladly die for. You STILL haven’t fucking told me quite why you did that, BY THE WAY.” She opens her mouth for a second, but you cut her off. “Shut up, I’m not done. You THEN for some god awful reason, you take ME to this HORRIBLE PLANET! You think I wanted to come here!? NO! I’M AWAY FROM STEVEN AND I’M ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED FOR HIM. I can’t seem to find a way home and.. everything here sucks! I have no idea why you brought me here, I have no idea who the fuck you’re supposed to be and why you wanted to murder Steven, I have no answers! And on top of all of this, you won’t stop touching me like I’m some fucking piece of meat you bought! Do you know how many times you’ve asked me about what  _ I _ wanted!? NONE! ABSOLUTELY NONE. IT’S BEEN ALL YOU. EVEN JUST NOW.” You huff out, completely winded, the rage inside you still burning.

“You never even asked me for my name.” You finish with, and glare at her.

“Okay, ya’ haven’t exactly been a saint either,” She tries, and your eye twitches in aggravation.

“YEAH? WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONE, TELL ME.” Your voice is shaking, and you can’t tell if it’s from the cold or from the anger.

“Ya keep hitting me, for one, and two, you’re a complete as-”

“YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ON ME. I’M DOING ALL THIS IN SELF DEFENSE!” You shove at her chest, and she growls in frustration.

“I’M TRYING TO HELP!” She blurts out angrily, and you are trying to not scream. “Just sit still, because I’m not letting ya go, okay!?”

You’re shivering from the cold and from your fury, and you don’t know what to do. You won’t let her think it’s okay to treat you like this.

“I don’t get why you’re trying so hard to keep me alive, considering you’ve nearly tried killing me multiple times.” You grumble out in anger.

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.” She replies with, and you look at her with narrowed eyes.

“Changed your mind. Are you fucking kidding me.” 

“Yeah, ya heard me.” She glares back at you, and you’re wondering what the fuck she’s on about.

“Did you realize that you’re stuck on this planet with no escape, and if you killed me, you’d be trapped here by yourself?” She narrows her eyes even further at you.

“No-”

“I knew you were terrified of being alone.” 

“Can ya shut up!?” She says lowly, her eyes filled with frustration.

“I just can’t seem to figure out why.” You state, at this point you’re only pushing her buttons because it seems like the only way to get more information out of her.

She looks like she wants to murder you, and this makes you want to laugh for some reason.

“I regret thinking I could be friends with you, as brief as that was.” She spits out at you, and you actually laugh out loud at that.

“YOU THOUGHT WE COULD BE FRIENDS!? OH THAT’S FUNNY!” You stop to laugh, and have to catch your breath to continue. “Why would you think I’d want to be friends with someone who doesn’t even know the definition of friendship? You’re a fucking joke.”

Her eye twitches in quiet fury, and she licks her lips before responding. You can tell she’s holding a lot back.

“Ya know what? I definitely feel the same, whatever the fuck your name is.”

“It’s Y/N, bitch. Thanks for fucking asking a week after kidnapping me. This is proof as to why you’re a terrible friend.” 

The two of your eyes meet, and you can feel something here, between you two. Like a spark. It isn’t pleasant at all. The air around you two is tenser than anything you’ve ever felt in your life. 

Several long seconds pass, and she pulls her gaze away from yours to look at the fire. You do the same. You let silence wrap itself around the two of you, tired from your anger, tired from the day, tired from existing in general.

You don’t talk to each other at all the rest of the night. 

When you finally decide to go to sleep, she doesn’t face you. She instead turns around to press her back against you, the long line of her torso against yours.

You fall asleep still pretty cold. 

  
  


-

  
  
  


You wake up several hours later feeling way too warm, and a little groggy. You feel.. slightly off.

You open your sleep-heavy eyes slowly, and Spinel is wrapped around your back, pressed against you tightly. You want to roll your eyes, but spending the last week or so with her, you’ve come to expect this. You don’t think she realizes that she’s a cuddler at all, and this cracks you up, despite how much you dislike her. 

The side of your face hurts where your wound is, and it's kind of painful to the touch. You feel a bit of sweat on your forehead when you wipe it, and you seem to be a bit warmer than usual. You're sure you're coming down with a fever, and there isn't really anything you can do about it. You're going to have to let this pass over you, and clean out your wound again later. 

Actually, now that you think about it, you should probably wake up Spinel to get her to do this for you before it gets worse. It is her fault, after all. You attempt to roll away from her to sit up, before you hear her mumble something in her sleep, and you freeze momentarily to try to catch it.

Her arms twitch around your middle, and you can feel her pressing her face between your shoulder blades. You hear her mumble a bit, but all you can catch is the word "pink". 

Alright. Weird, but could be worse.

All of a sudden she twitches violently against you, nearly thrashing her limbs against your side. You're pretty sure she's having some sort of night terror. Serves her right, honestly. You clear your throat.

"Spinel." You say out loud, hoping you don't have to move her to wake her. Your limbs feel like jelly, and the heavier gravity on this planet that you’re barely used to isn’t helping. Several seconds go by, and nothing. You repeat yourself louder this time, and she freezes against your back with a jolt.

"Hhuuugh." You hear her grumble behind you.

She pulls her arms away from you to rub at her eyes, and she sighs out loud.

“Have a nice nightmare?” You comment out loud.

“I did, thanks.” She replies groggily, clearly pissy.

“You were talking out loud and you clung onto me.” You can feel her aggravation even though you can't see her.

“Yeah? What’d I say?” 

“Pink. Like, why’d you say that? Unless you’re having a nightmare about yourself.” You say, and laugh. For some reason this makes you dizzy.

She freezes and goes quiet behind you. Several seconds pass before she speaks again.

"It's nothing." And she's quiet again.

You move to sit up, and regret it instantly. Everything is so much worse. Your head feels like it's filled with cotton, and there's so much pressure in your skull.

"Ughhh. I think I've got a fever." You feel your forehead again to be sure, and yeah, you're kind of burning up. You drop your hand into your lap, and it hits your leg like a deadweight. Everything is so much effort.

"What's a fever for humans?" She sits up next to you, and stares at your face. You don't have the brainpower to explain this.

"Uhh, it's like.. our body is trying to fight off and get rid of bacteria and infection, and it makes us really tired, and sluggish, and our bodies heat up a few degrees higher.." You trail off, staring at your hands.

The room is spinning.

"I think I gotta lay down." You say, unmoving. She places a hand on your wrist, and her eyebrows shoot up.

"Oh, wow, you are warm." She moves her hand to touch your face, and you wearily move away from her.

"Don't touch me. I'm.. I'm pretty sure this is your fault anyway." You look at her and glare, and you feel suddenly weightless. Uh.

"How is this my fault?" She stares at you in confusion.

"You.. cut open my face." Words feel like molasses coming out of your mouth, and the room is still spinning. You close your eyes.

"Look, I.. " You hear her start, but you're not paying attention. Your head hurts. "..Y/N? You're swaying. Lay down." 

You open your eyes to look her in the face. She said your name.. and she seems openly concerned, which is a new look on her. Kinda nice, for once..

You must be delirious.

"I'm not." You reply several seconds later, and the edges of your vision are wavering.

"Uh, ya sure about that?" Her eyebrows furrow further.

"Yup." You say, and pass out.

-

You wake up several hours later feeling extremely groggy, but otherwise a little better than before. You don't move or even have the energy to open your eyes, not that you'd be able to, considering you feel something cold covering half your face.

You hear shuffling around you, and feel fingers touch the side of your face gently. They slide up to your temple, and you think Spinel's feeling for your temperature. Huh. That's.. not what you were expecting at all from her.

She pulls her hand away, and you hear her shuffle to the other side of the room, muttering something to herself that you can't quite catch. You lay there wondering what she's doing, pretending to still be unconscious. She moves back over to you, and you can hear her drop a bit of water next to you, some of it splashing on your arm. 

She sighs, and you feel her lift the cold object (that feels like a leaf) she laid across your face, and you do your best impression of a sleeping person. She then gently wipes your forehead with some water, and starts to remove the stuff she put on your face.

She tsks out loud, and you almost wince at her scraping the edges of your skin.

".. couldn't even do that, of course I'm awful at this too." Are the only words you can catch her mumbling.

She continues to re-dress your wound, and you let her while you lay there unmoving. You’ve never heard her like this, or act like this, and it’s starting to bring a new depth to her that you hadn’t considered prior. Is she seriously criticizing herself right now?

It takes her a few minutes to finish, and after she’s done, she sits next to you quietly. You’re wondering if you should take this as your chance to ‘wake up’, but you suddenly feel her hand on your face again, checking your temperature. She then slides her hand down to your neck and you think she’s checking your pulse, and you almost involuntarily giggle because it tickled. She pulls her hand from your neck, and drops it to hold your wrist in her hand. Is she checking your pulse there too?

You’ll get up in a second, you figure.

You feel her softly trace the edges of your skin on your wrist, following the line of your veins. The slow graze of her skin against yours has you feeling strangely calm, and the realization of this irks you. You don’t even like her, and you think you’re just feeling touched starved. 

You hear her sigh, and you open your eyes.

She’s staring at you with a strange expression, and once she realizes that you’re awake she drops your wrist quickly and furrows her eyebrows, facial expression back to one you’re more used to.

“Hey.” You say, voice rough with sleep.

“How are ya’ feelin?” She asks, looking at your face for signs of pain or discomfort.

“Like shit.” You reply deadpan, and sit up.

“Ya probably shouldn’t do that right now.” She places her hand on your shoulder to push you back down, and you smack her hand away.

“I’m fine, and stop pretending that you care.” You say with irritation.

“I’m not..” She starts with. “Ugh, whatever. You’re impossible.”

Ignoring her comment, you feel your own face for a second, tenderly touching around the area of your wound. It hurts a bit, and your skin feels clammy. But it’s got a fresh application of whatever salve Spinel made, and that’s decent enough for now.

“Thanks for this,” You point at your face. “It almost makes up for the fact that you were the one to do this to me in the first place.” She stares at you apprehensively.

“Look, even if I apologized for it now, I have a feelin ya wouldn’t exactly take it.” 

“You’re completely right on that, for once.” You reply. “I’m only a little surprised you didn’t make the wound worse, honestly.”

“I’m not stupid, ya know. I know a couple things about organic beings.” She shifts her eyes to the side, only kind of looking at you.

“Could’ve fooled me, bringing me to this hell planet. Where ever the fuck this is.” You try and stretch out your back, as you’ve been laying in the same painful position for hours.

“I tried, okay!” She sighs in frustration, throwing her hands up in the air dramatically. “It doesn’t seem like anything I can do is good enough for you.”

You stare at her, dumbfounded. 

“If you were actually trying to help me, you’d ask me what I want right now, Spinel.”

“Okay..” She locks eyes with you, raising an eyebrow. “What do ya want?”

“I want to get off this planet.” You say curtly. “This is fucking obvious.”

“Uh, anything else you want? Because I’m stuck here just like you, hate to break it to ya.”

“What? You were the one that decided to destroy the warp pad! Why the fuck did you do that then, if you hated being here as much as me!?” You belt out in tired frustration. 

“I don’t know!” She cries out in equal amounts of exasperation. “I was so caught up in my feelings that I just did it, okay!”

“You.. what.” You slow blink at her. “You were caught up in your feelings.” She avoids your gaze, much like a child does when in forced confrontation.

“Nevermind.” She says dismissively.

“No, we’re talking about this.” You spit out harshly. “I’m done having zero idea as to what’s going on. I need answers.”

She moves over to the other side of the room, like she’s trying to leave. You’re pissed and feel like shit, but you manage to get up on your wobbly legs, taking a single step forward.

“You can’t just leave me in the dark forever, Spinel. You got me into this mess, and I deserve to know why.”

She stops at the entrance to your shelter, and crosses her arms.

“I brought you here initially as a bargaining chip. I wanted to kill Steven, but ya fucked with my plans by defending him. So I took you instead, hoping to get another go at him in a different, unfamiliar location.”

“Why did you want to kill Steven?” You pry, frustrated with her constant half-answers.

“I’m not answering that.” She says immediately. You want to scream.

“Are you fucking with me? This is why I can’t trust you! This is why-” You suddenly cough enough to leave you breathless, interrupting yourself. You feel lightheaded, and Spinel is looking at you with concern.

“Should probably sit down.” She says, moving closer to you.

“I’m fine, and besides.” You glare at her. “If you wanna go, just go. You keep running from your problems like they’re not gonna catch up to you eventually.” She doesn’t say anything at that, and you continue. “Whatever reason you wanted to kill Steven for, I can tell you right now, is completely stupid if you haven’t already came to that conclusion yourself.”

She opens her mouth in protest, shuts it, and gives you an angry look you’re familiar with.

“I’d tread carefully here, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Listen,” You cough again, covering your mouth with your fist. “Steven wouldn’t harm a fly, and I’ve known him for years.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” She snaps back with, and you want to smack her. You’ve never dealt with anyone more frustrating in your entire life.

“It does! You’re being so fucking dodgy I’m nearly going insane. Most of the other gems that tried killing him only did so because of some shit his mother did!” You stop talking immediately to stare at her again. You just realized something.

She immediately rips her gaze from you, and you think you know  _ exactly  _ what her problem is.

“Did Pink Diamond do something to you? Was  _ that _ it?” 

She slowly turns her head to regard you again, facial expression carefully guarded. 

“Maybe don’t go talking about things you know nothin’ about.”

“Except I  _ do _ know about this. Look, whatever she fucking did to you, you can’t blame Steven for this.”   
  
Her eyebrows furrowing, she looks like she’s about to kick your ass. You HAVE to be spot on for her to react like this.

“You’re not the only one she fucked over, you know. You can’t just-”   
  
“I  _ KNOW!  _ I know what she was prone to doing!” Her hands are shaking in anger, fists curled. “Stop talking like you know what I’ve  _ been _ through!”

“You’re not fucking special, you know. Steven’s been dealing with his mother’s problems since he was born! Everyone that has been wronged by her has come to try to kill him, and you’re no different from them. You’re just like all the other assholes that decided to take their anger out on an innocent kid!” You might’ve said too much all at once, because the room is starting to spin again, and you go back to sitting down for a moment. 

Spinel is standing still, opening and closing her fist, like she doesn’t know what to say. You can tell she’s pissed, staring at you, even if it looks like she’s hiding it.

Several seconds pass, and she says nothing.

She spins around, and briskly leaves your shelter. You sit there, alone, in the cold.

“Okay, fine. Be like that.” You say out loud, to no one in particular. 

Of course she runs when faced with her own problems.

  
  


-

  
  


She comes back nearly half an hour later, fruit in hand. She tosses it to you, and you barely manage to catch it.

“Couldn’t leave me for long huh? Scared I’d die?” You sarcastically say out loud, not expecting any kind of response from her.

“I’m tired of fighting with ya constantly. This is exhausting.” She finally says, crossing her arms in front of her gem.

“Yeah?” You say, raising an eyebrow at her. You bite into the food she gave you, surprised she didn’t come back angrily. You were expecting another fight, honestly.

“Yeah.” She repeats back, unmoving from her position.   
  
“It takes two to fucking tango, you know that right? Don’t act like  _ I’M _ the difficult one.” You chew your food, not really caring for the taste right now.

“You aren’t making this easy at all, actually. I’ve met my fair share of different types of people, but you’ve got to be the hardest person I’ve ever dealt with.” She replies deadpan, regarding you with her gaze. She leans against one of the walls, and a flower on one of the nearby vines hisses at her. She immediately leans away from the offending plant.

“Oh, like YOU’RE a walk in the park?” You scoff, taking another bite. “At least I KNOW what my problems are, and I’m  _ trying _ to deal with them. Unlike you.”

“Talking with you is like pulling teeth.” She hisses out, your words clearly affecting her.

“Yeah? Likewise. Maybe talk to a mirror sometime and you’ll see what I’m talking about.” You chew slowly, blinking at her.

She unfolds her arms, placing her face into her hands, and sighs exasperatedly into them. You almost laugh at this.

“Okay, look,” She pulls her hands away from her face. “I’ve come to the conclusion that we could maybe work together to get off this planet.” You almost choke on your food.

“What? For real? You’re serious?” You say, surprised.

“...yeah.” 

“You hate it here as much as I do?” 

“Yes, especially since the only other person I can talk to is.. you.” She replies tiredly. “I just don’t know where to start looking for a way off. I’m pretty sure I destroyed the only warp pad here, but there’s got to be other means.”

“I might have something.” You say, finishing the last bite of your fruit. You chuck the stem attached to the inedible bits of rind into the corner. “I kinda wanted to check out something I saw in the distance, when I was on that hill.” She considers you, and what you said, for a moment. 

“Hm.” She says, thinking things over for a moment.

“Look, we don’t need to get along, we don’t have to like each other, we just need to be able to work together.” 

“If we are able to leave, you won’t turn me over to your gem friends?” She looks at you suspiciously.

“Only if you help me and we actually get off this planet, you promise not to kill Steven, and I never have to see you again after.”

She stares at you for a long time, face blank, before saying anything.

“I can do that.” She finally says, and holds out her hand. You look down to it, wondering if this is something for you to trust in her. You shrug, and grasp her hand with a firm clap.

“It’s a deal.”

  
  


-

  
  


Spinel hasn’t brought up anything more about what you guys were talking about that night, but you’re determined to get this out of her, one way or another. You’ve learned quite a bit about her in the last few days, but not as much as you’d like to at this point. Not that you care about her or anything. 

It has now been several days since your fever, and you finally feel like your body is in decent enough condition to make the trek over to the structure. With Spinel agreeing to work together with you on leaving this planet, you finally have hope that maybe you’ll get to sleep in your own bed again, and this nightmare will finally be over. 

You just hope nothing goes wrong.


	6. Six

It's been nearly two weeks that you've been on this hellhole of a planet, and frankly, you're pretty fucking done with it.

You're currently grabbing anything you've deemed useful from your shelter, as the trip over to the structure might take a while and honestly, you're not too sure you'll be back. Whatever state that building is in, it has to be better off than your drafty ruins. You're hoping so, anyway.

You look around you to your tied up supplies and pick up your last remaining fruit. You'll have to find some more along the way, but it shouldn't be a big deal. You shoulder your shoddily made pack, and head out the opening to meet with Spinel outside.

"Ya finally ready to go?" You hear her say from the side as you step out, and she's leaning against the building casually. You roll your eyes at her.

"It wouldn't have taken so long if you helped me tie up the remaining bundle of wood. I only have two hands, you know." You reply to her sarcastically.

"You seemed perfectly capable of handling that yourself, though."

"I am, thanks! You're just not allowed to complain about my speed." You say as you brush past her, nearly hitting her with your pack on purpose. You hear her scoff as you pass her.

You walk several steps away, heading in the direction the two of you discussed before realizing that you aren't hearing her footsteps behind you. You turn around to see her tugging on a nearby tree branch, ripping it off the tree easily.

"Uh, you coming?"

"Yeah, hold on." She says as she breaks off a couple twigs on the sides of her branch.

"What in the world are you doing?" You ask her, a little exasperated.

"Making a weapon? Just in case? We don't know what's over there." She raises her eyebrows like this is obvious.

"You.. you're a gem. You can smack the shit out of anything with your natural abilities. You don't need a sharp stick to help you."

"It's for you, stupid." She rolls her eyes. "You're like, fleshy and stuff. They'd rip you to shreds."

"I can defend myself, thanks." You retort, turning around to continue walking. She catches up to you pretty quickly.

"Can you just take it!?" She thrusts it out at you. You stare at her for a moment, and then reluctantly grab it from her hands.

“Fine, whatever.” You give her a look, and spin around to keep walking. “ _ Pretty sure I’d be most likely ending up using this on you. _ ” You mutter under your breath.

“What did ya just say?” You hear her say from behind you.

“Nothing.” You keep your pace brisk, stepping over the large roots on the overgrown footpath in front of you. 

“Pretty sure I heard ya’ say something.”

“Forget it.” You wipe your forehead, the sweltering heat of the jungle making you slightly irritated. She makes a non-committal grunt in response.

You have a couple miles of walking before you guys reach your destination, and you’re only vaguely aware of where you’re going. Just the direction, really. You’re not exactly feeling super chatty, but you have a feeling Spinel is in a mood to be. 

Surprisingly enough though, you both walk in complete silence for a good hour or so.

That is, until you decide to stop to rest your feet for a little while. You take your pack off to stretch your shoulders and arms out, leaning on a nearby large rock. You also set the stick she gave you down. Spinel's standing nearby, casually glancing at you as well as presumably looking out for any nearby threats.

"Organic beings sure need a lot of rest." You hear Spinel say out loud to no one in particular, and nearly scoff at her. 

It's a bit funny, actually. You've learned in the last few days that she'll constantly talk out loud in a certain way, that leaves it open for you to join in on conversation. Even though it's just you two. You don't think she's doing it on purpose, but it's kind of hilarious to think that somehow, she's trying for companionship with you. Not that she has any other choice.

"We're literally walking meatbags, Spinel." You say to her quite frankly, and she makes a face. "I'm affected by a lot of things. Heat, moisture, the ground levels, even the gravity. Especially the gravity. I feel like this is going to have long term effects on my knees."

"I didn't think that the gravity would have much of an impact." She replies, crossing her arms. 

"You wouldn't. You're a gem. You guys don't really think much about other species entirely."

"Okay.. ow. Ya’ don’t need to lump me in with the rest of them.”

You stare at her pointedly. “Do I need to remind you how I got here in the first place?”

“Point taken.” She replies, a bit sheepishly. 

“Anyway,” You lean down to grab your pack off the ground. “Let’s keep going. We still have a ways to go.”

You trudge through the dense trees of the jungle, some areas much thicker than the rest. The air is downright dripping with humidity, making it harder for you to breathe. What’s even worse is that there is so much lush vegetation around you that you’re starting to feel like maybe you lost a bit of direction. You’re distracted with your thoughts about what lies ahead of you, that you nearly trip again on a large root half sticking out of the ground. Spinel grabs your arm to keep you from falling, and you mutter out a quick thanks to her without thinking too much about it. Adjusting the vine straps on your shoulders for better balance, you keep going. You hear Spinel behind you speak.

“Did you actually just thank me for something? Genuinely?” She sounds almost touched.

“Please don’t read into that.” You look up at the trees in irritation. She can’t see your face anyway. “I’ll make sure to never do that again.”

You hear her sigh loudly behind you. Ignoring it and keeping an eye out for everything around you, you notice something off to the side.

“Hey.” You stop and say. “Is that..”

You trail off, squinting in the distance. Spinel steps up beside you, peering through the trees to see what you’re looking at.

“Is that another cave?” She asks out loud. You were thinking the same thing.

“I think so. It looks similar to the other two we’ve seen.”

“Why out here?” She brings her hand up to her face, expression concerned.

“Does it  _ look _ like I know? If anything, YOU should know. You’ve been to more places than I have, and have seen more.” 

She glances at you with an unreadable expression.

“I.. haven’t really been to a place like this. This is all new to me as well.”

“What, have you lived under a rock this whole time?” You retort sarcastically, huffing out a short laugh. “..It’s funny because you’re technically a rock.”

She gives you a tired, grave expression, and you have to force yourself to not laugh out loud at it.

“..Maybe I have. Anyway.. we should probably check out what’s in there eventually. Maybe it’s gem stuff even I don’t know about.” She finishes, crossing her arms.

Her body language is a little stiff like you offended her, and you don’t know why. Maybe she hates jokes. Whatever.

“Look, I don’t know how to tell you this, but they give me bad vibes. I’m not too keen on going in there.” 

“I could go in alone if you’re scared.” She smirks, eyes trailing down to yours.

“I’m not scared. It’s my gut instinct, asshole. And besides, you probably shouldn’t go in either. What if it’s something that can kill you?”

“Pfft, what could be in there that could kill me? I’m a gem, remember. I’ll just poof and reform.” She shrugs, uncaring.

“I feel like you should trust me in this. But if you wanna test fate, go right ahead.”

“I wouldn’t trust you even if you were actually giving me good advice.”

“I’m the one who should be saying that, not the other way around.” You scoff, glaring at her. You turn to keep walking.

Another hour of walking passes in mostly silence, and you finally reach an area with a clearing and a small hill. Eagerly, you run up it, hoping to be able to get a more precise look at your location, and how far you’re from the structure at this point.

You hear muffled foot movement in the grass, Spinel coming up beside you just as you realize what you’re seeing, now that you’re closer.

“Is that a half made Spire?” She says, hand flat above her face, shielding her eyes from the scorching sun overhead. 

“I think so?” You reply, squinting to try to get a better look at the details. “I haven’t seen very many before so..”

“Huh, they stopped making those on planets thousands of years ago.” She looks over to you, and you meet her gaze.

“If they stopped that long ago, why is this one only half-made?”

“I.. don’t know.” She shrugs, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “They usually finish the job, whether it be for a kindergarten, or terraforming. It’s very unlike any colony to just.. stop. This planet should’ve been mostly decimated, now that I think about it.”

“Weird. Let’s go find out, I guess.” You shrug, and head back down the hill, Spinel following your lead.

It takes you another few hours to get to the Spire, considering you have to take a detour around a huge, unwalkable cliffside. The sun is starting to set when you get to it, some of the days heat already dissipated.

Looking up, this thing is maybe.. a good two hundred feet tall. Large chunks are missing out of several sides, some from age and decay, some from where they just stopped building. You feel Spinel’s presence beside you, her arm barely touching yours.

“It’s strange that they’d just.. stop.” She speaks up next to you. “Most of the Bismuth’s I’ve met refuse to let a job go unfinished. They’re perfectionists.”

You stare up at it long enough for your neck to start hurting. Its.. height is a little formidable.

“Is there a way for us to get inside?” You ponder out loud, looking around the base of the building, too many trees nearby obscuring most of it.

“There’s always a way to get inside. Ya just gotta look.” 

“I AM looking.” You walk off from her, moving several bushes aside in one area, looking for a clue along the edges of the walls surface.

“It’s probably on the other side, then.” She says sarcastically, catching up to you instead of looking around by herself.

You feel yourself rolling your eyes, and you let the bush branches out of your grip, nearly hitting Spinel with it. She just barely manages to move out of the way before getting whipped by it.

“Watch it!” She shouts, glaring at you.

“Oh, my bad.” You smirk. “Didn’t see you there. Was just trying to find the entrance.” You blink innocently.

She stares at you dumbfounded, and shuts her open mouth. Turning on her heel, she spins around to walk in the other direction around the Spire. 

You chuckle to yourself. How dramatic.

Looking at the walls of this building, you trail your hand along the stone, gazing upon any crack that might give you a clue. The base of this thing is pretty large, so a door could be anywhere. 

It’s pretty quiet around you. It’s kind of always been quiet on this planet, but you feel like it’s even quieter around this area for whatever reason. The weird vines are here as well, with those gross-looking fleshy flowers climbing up the wall of this half-finished tower. A couple minutes pass as you keep walking around this thing, finding absolutely nothing still.

You eventually catch up with Spinel, and see her standing in front of something.. which you can see is vaguely door-shaped, covered by a thick layer of vines. Of course.

“Found it.” She starts with, sounding smug. She’s smirking. “Told ya it was on the other side.”

“Of course it was.” You reply, not at all enthused. “You figure out how to open it yet?”

“No..” She trails off, looking around the edge of the door, pushing vines aside to find some sort of control for the door.

“Of course you haven’t.” 

“Hey, at least I found the  _ door _ .” 

“Not exactly an accomplishment.” You say sarcastically, bending down to the left side, moving vines to see something you had thought you saw turned out to be nothing. You hear her scoff in irritation. “Isn’t there normally some kind of access panel?”

“Yeah, but I can’t seem to find it.”

“ _ Aren’t you useful. _ ” You mutter under your breath, starting to move large amounts of vines at once, determined to get inside the Spire before it actually gets dark.

“I heard that.” She huffs out in irritation. 

“I’m glad you have functioning ears.” You reply, deadpan. “Do you have functioning eyes? Because I need you to use them before we’re stuck out here in the dark.”

“Why are you such an asshole, like, all the time?” You hear her say from behind you.

Is she really asking you this? You sigh internally, not wanting to have this conversation.

“Because I’m tired, all the time. Tired of this place, tired of you, tired in general.” You stand up, hearing your spine crack, and look at Spinel.

She looks.. kind of hurt. What the hell.

“Also, it’s kind of a defense mechanism.” You finish with, taking one last look along the entirety of the wall. Fuck all of this, you were hoping it’d be easy.

“What.. do you mean?” She asks, tentatively.

“What?” You turn to raise your eyebrow at her, puzzled. “Do you like, care, or something?”   
  
“No,” She says all too quickly. “I just don’t understand why you’re defensive, or so hostile towards me.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like we’re friends.” You give her another look. “Can we like, just get this door open? Instead of chatting. I can physically feel the temperature drop.”

Her gaze lingers on you, completely unreadable, before looking back towards the door.

“I’m kind of at a loss. Normally the panel is just out in full view, but I can’t seem to find anything anywhere.” 

“Ughhh, I just want IN!” You nearly shout in frustration, slapping your hand against the wall.

You hear a click, and the sound of stone sliding against itself. You and Spinel look at each other.

“Huh.” She says, “What do ya know?”

A small panel opens on the side, and you see its screen glowing. Both of you walk up to it.

“Is there like a button, or..?” You trail off momentarily, thinking to yourself. “Pearl usually just placed her hand on it, and we’d be good.”

Spinel considers it for a second, and then slams her palm on the screen. 

It does nothing for several long seconds, and then you hear the voice of a Pearl.

“Please scan your gem.” The console says nearly robotically.

You look towards Spinel, and her eyebrows are furrowed in confusion. “What?” You ask.

“This is really old tech.” She states, and walks right up to the screen. “I’m pretty sure only Diamonds and their Pearls would have access to something like this.” She leans over the screen, letting it recognize the object in front of it. A red line comes out, and it scans her gem.

“Is there any other way in?” You nearly sigh out loud, frustrated. The sun has set already, and it’s nearly chilly outside now. Pretty soon you’ll be seeing your breath.

You hear two beeps in succession, and the voice chimes out again.

“Welcome, Spinel.”

“Uhh,” You say in confusion. “You been here before?”

“I’m one hundred percent sure I haven’t.” She states, just as confused as you are.

The door in front of you shudders under the weight of the vines, before finally opening with a swoosh sound. Stale air hits you in the face, and you almost sneeze.

“Spinel,” You say. “What kind of gem did you say you were again?”

“I never told you what kind of gem I was.” She stares at you, slightly guarded. 

“Why would you have access? What are you?” You push at her, needing to know. 

She sighs in aggravation, wiping her hand down her face.

“I’m a companion gem.”

You stare at her.

“A companion gem. What exactly does that fucking mean?” You ask.

“Ya know.. like. Friendship and stuff.” She huffs out, narrowing her eyes at you.

“What..” You slowly blink, trying to comprehend this. Oh my god, what the fuck? You guess that makes sense, considering.. “So you just like, make friends with people? Pfff-”   
  
“Don’t.” She cuts you off with a glare.

"You're a friendship gem? The fuck? Are you like some sort of carebear?" You try not to laugh. You weren’t expecting this from a gem who tried to kill you.

"Tha'  _ fuck _ is a carebear." She spits out, clearly aggravated and confused.

"Don’t worry about it." You shut your mouth, in case you burst out laughing. “Let’s just go inside, shall we?”

She nearly pushes past you, walking into the entrance of the Spire. You follow suit. 

With a whooshing sound, the door closes behind you both, and envelopes you in darkness.


	7. Seven

“Uhhh..” You hear yourself echo out into what feels like empty space. “Is there a lightsource nearby?” 

“There should be, hold on.” You turn to Spinel, to see her gemstone glowing slightly on her chest. Huh. “Give me a second, and I should be able to find the control nearby.”

You watch the glow of her gem move off to the side, and you take a couple steps forward to get your bearings. It smells.. dusty in here. You can’t feel anything around you, so you assume you’re in an open space. Nearly a minute passes in the dark, and you hear Spinel shuffling around a good twenty feet away from you.

“You find anything yet?” Your words continue to bounce off the walls. There must be a high ceiling, too.

“Could ‘ya be a little patient? I don’t see you helping.” You hear her reply.

“I can’t see in the dark, what do you expect me to do? It’s not like _ I  _ have a gem to light the way for me.” You scoff, taking a few more steps forward.

“I think I found it.” You hear another small click, and all of a sudden the room lights up around you.

You’re about two feet away from something, and when you look up, you realize it’s a statue a good thirty feet tall. The face is strikingly stern, with the chin jutting out in a fierce display of authority.

“Is that Yellow Diamond?” Spinel says off to the side.

“Yeah.” You stare at it a bit more. “Funny. She looks the exact same now.”

“You’ve met Yellow Diamond?” She asks, perplexed. She’s walking back over to you now.

“Yeah, a couple times, all under very weird circumstances. At least she eventually stopped trying to kill Steven, though." You chuckle, looking at the room around you. 

The walls are long and high, and there’s a couple of really old Diamond murals along it. You see a staircase in the back, leading up to the second floor, and a couple of generic statues off to the side that looked like they were just placed there randomly. In the middle and along one side of the wall there is a bunch of outdated gem technology, with a giant screen taking up a large portion of it.

“She tried killing Steven?”

“Yup. Dunno why you sound surprised, you also tried killing him.” You reply, tired and sarcastic.

“That’s different! I had my.. reasons.”

“Your reasons are basically the same. It all ties back to Pink Diamond.”

“I..” She crosses her arms, and purposefully looks at the gem tech in front of her. “I doubt that.”

You stare at her for a moment. “Well, maybe if you told me why, I’d be able to tell you that you were wrong to your face, and we can finally settle this.”

“Settle what, exactly?” She uncrosses her arms, and wipes the console in front of her. There is so much dust caked onto the controls and screen that her glove comes back with a thick, dark layer of dust. She makes a disgusted face.

“Your problems. You clearly have issues with something that happened, and you’re letting them control nearly every aspect of you. I can tell.” You nearly cough at the slight dust cloud around you, and you have to bring your hand up to your face to wave it away.

“That’s none of your business.” She snaps back with, and presses several buttons in front of her. The console beeps, and the screen lights up in front of you two.

“It isn’t, no. But it’s not like you have anyone else to talk to.” You shrug, watching the screen boot up. You don’t really care anymore, not really. Not since she promised to not harm Steven. 

“You’re kind of a hypocrite.”

“Really?” You scoff. “What makes you say that?”

“You also have problems. I can rarely talk to you without you snapping at me.” She wipes more of the computer down, and attempts to shake the dust off her glove, to no avail.

You glare at her, unable to form your words for a moment.

“Listen, I-”

You’re cut off by the console chiming, and you hear a voice say “Welcome”. Both you and Spinel look at each other.

“You think communications are still up?” You ask, argument momentarily forgotten.

“They should be. Gems built tech to last for thousands of years.” You watch her navigate the menu, display language in something you cannot read. 

Several messages pop up on the screen, and Spinel huffs out her nose in frustration while exiting out of all of them.

"What's wrong?"

"It's giving me connection issues."

"Are you serious.." You want to scream. “Why does everything need to be difficult!? I just want to go home.”

"I'll get it fixed, sheesh. Give me a minute to figure out what it's talking about." She grits her teeth, tongue poking out slightly. You watch her offhandedly, as you really can’t do much else other than wait. 

She’s changed a little since you’ve met her. Not so much appearance wise, other than her pigtails looking a little more frayed, a bit looser. Like she’s let the wild of the jungle get to her. You’ve always found the markings on her face a bit strange, but you’ve grown used to them. The thing that bothers you the most honestly, is that her heart shaped gem (that you now can guess is heart shaped because she’s a friendship gem.. the irony) is upside down? It makes no sense. You won’t ask her why she looks the way she does, though. 

The last couple of days you’ve felt a bit different about her. You don’t really hate her anymore, not really. She’s kind of tolerable, sometimes.

Spinel makes a couple tutting noises which draw you out of your inner monologue. You watch her eyes flicker rapidly across the screen.

“So, good and bad news.” She finally says after several minutes.

“Bad news first.” You reply.

“Okay, all network signals are completely down and I can’t seem to get them back up.”

“And the good news?”

“I attached an SOS signal to a nearby satellite. It should be able to bounce off something from there and get to someone, but who knows at this point.”

Of course.

“That ain’t great but.. it’s something.” You shrug. You’re disappointed, but there isn’t really anything you can do to change this. She narrows her eyes at you.

“I was expecting you to be a lot more.. angry about this. Not gonna lie.”

“Well, it’s kind of on brand at this point for this planet to give me unpleasant news.” You roll your eyes at her. “I’m not fussy all the time.”

“Coulda fooled me.” She snaps back instantly, and you give her a pissy look. Whatever. You’re tired.

A bit done with the whole situation, you disengage yourself from the console while you walk around, looking at everything. It's dusty as fuck in here, clearly from disuse. Off to the side, you see a pile of something and instantly get excited.

"Ohhh fuck yes." You hear your voice echo across the room.

"What are you going on about over there?" Spinel pipes up from her position on the other side, but she doesn't move.

"I found a cloth tarp! A big one!" You shout back, picking up a corner of the fabric, feeling it on your fingers. It's a bit rough, but after sleeping on fucking leaves for the last two weeks, this feels like a luxury.

"..and why are you excited about that?" 

"Because this will make sleeping so much better, and it's the closest thing to a blanket, okay! Anything is better than leaves at this point."

"Humans are so weird." She replies with, staring at you for a brief moment before going back to looking at the screen. You find yourself not really caring.

"Anyway, I'm gonna shake this out and pass out soon. Today has exhausted me." You cough from all the dust you're kicking up. 

"Do what you want." She says, “I’m gonna see if I can somehow restore the corrupted data logs I found on here.”

You  _ will _ do what you want, you think to yourself. She can do whatever.

You go to grab a bunch of the cloth tarps and move them into a giant pile in the corner of the room, after shaking each one out further away from your chosen spot. It takes you awhile, and when you’re done, Spinel is still at the console, eyebrows furrowed at the screen.

You lay down, and face the wall.

By the time you're half asleep she finally lays down next to you, and you hear her sigh to herself while adjusting the cloth over herself. Sleep comes to you easy.

-

You wake up several hours later due to Spinel getting up from her position beside you and walking away from your bed pile. In your half sleep state, you hear the doors to the Spire open and close. Did she just.. leave? You lay there very groggily for several minutes, wondering if you should go check on her to see what she’s doing. She’s never left in the middle of the night before like this. A few more minutes pass and before you can convince yourself to brave the cold outside, you hear the doors opening again with a swoosh, and the sound of footsteps walking back towards you.

Spinel lifts the drop cloth and gets back under it right next to you, and you try your best to not seem like you’re awake right now. You let your breathing even out, with no further sound or movement coming from Spinel behind you. 

Honestly, this is the most comfortable you’ve been since being on Earth, even if it is just laying on a pile of musty tarps. Minutes pass, and you’re starting to feel your eyes droop again with sleep. You feel your body relax, and then.. something touches the small of your back. It’s just enough of a touch to feel it, and it jostles you out of your sleep again. Is she asleep? You listen closely to hear her breathing, and you’re a 100% positive she’s awake. You move slightly, and she quickly pulls her hand away in response. ...okay. Why was she touching you?

You roll over immediately to see what’s up with her, and she’s staring at you with a strange expression.

“Why’d you leave?” You ask, voice rough with sleep. Her eyes flicker between yours, considering you for a moment before opening her mouth.

“..I had a nightmare.” She says, plainly. Her facial expression is kind of.. vulnerable. 

“Okay, but why’d you leave the Spire?” You’re too tired and not really in the mood to make fun of her for this, and besides, the air around you right now is.. different. It’s hard to describe.

“I needed to get some fresh air to clear my head.” She sighs, and wipes some loose pink hair away from her face.

“Nightmare was that bad?” 

“..yeah.” She replies reluctantly. 

“Wanna talk about it?” You pry, not really caring if she does or not. 

“Not really.” She says, kind of stubbornly.

Ugh, okay. That’s the most you’re going to extend out to her. You’re tired and not really feeling up to this anyway.

“Alright, suit yourself.” You roll back over, and rest your head on your arm for a makeshift pillow. For some reason your tarp pile feels a lot more lumpy now, and it’s making it really hard to find a decent comfortable spot. You adjust yourself multiple times before finally settling, and pulling your drop cloth back up to your chin. Man.. this thing decently keeps in body heat. You almost feel snug under here.

You feel yourself falling asleep again, when Spinel moves slightly behind you.

“...um.” She clears her throat.

“Yeah?” You reply curtly. Can she let you fucking sleep?

“It was about Pink Diamond.” You open your eyes again, and you can just feel how tired your facial muscles are. Of course she wants to share with the class now.

“Was it the same nightmare as last time?” You hear yourself asking.

“...yeah, actually.” 

“That uh. That sucks.” You reply, kind of awkwardly. You don’t really know how to deal with this kind of thing. “Having the same nightmare twice, I mean.”

“I’ve had this happen every night we’ve been here.” She says bluntly, and you roll back over to face her.

“Every night? You’ve had the same exact nightmare every night?”

“Yes.” She narrows her eyes at you. “Is that not normal?”

You stare at her for a bit. You’re almost concerned. You know, if you actually cared about her.

“No, that’s not.. er. What are they about? Are you like, trying to give a serious report to the other gems or something, and when you look down you realize you’re in your underwear? And Pink Diamond is there, laughing at you?”

“No.” She replies, giving you a tired look. “It’s always about her abandoning me in the garden.”

“Pfft, abandoning you? I mean that’s shitty, but I was expecting, I don’t know, something like murder? What kind of nightmare is that?”   
  
“A realistic one.” She says, and takes in a long breath of air.

“Realistic.” You stop, open your mouth, and stop again. “Could you explain?”

She looks down at her hands momentarily, contemplating something. When she looks back up to meet your gaze, you feel as if her expression changed a little.

“So. Long story short.. we were best friends, and then she left me.”

You stare at her, waiting for her to continue. Several seconds pass in silence.

“You gonna elaborate on that?”

“This is hard for me.” She presses her face further into the tarps, almost as if she’d prefer to sink into them. “It’s kind of a fresh wound, still.”

“Well, I have time.” You say, neutrally. This seemed to be the right thing to say, because it looks like she just visibly relaxed her hunched up shoulders.

“You know how I said I was a companion gem?” She asks you, and you nod at her. “Well, I was made specifically for Pink Diamond.”

“Why?” You question out loud.

“The other Diamonds deemed her lonely, and also wanted her out of their hair. So they gave her.. me. It was great, being with her. We had our own garden to play in, just the two of us. We’d have hours of fun there.”

“If it was so great, why’d she leave you then?” You say, not quite understanding what she’s getting at here.

“She wanted a colony so bad like the other Diamonds. Pink begged them for so long, and threw so many tantrums that eventually they gave in.”

“And then she just left? You didn’t go with her?” 

“Yeah, and no.”

“What did you do?”   
  
“I waited for her.”   
  
“You WAITED for her?”

“She told me to. You know, like we were playing a game. And I’m good at games, the  _ best _ even, but..”

“But?”

“She never came back.”

You stare at her. You feel like something maybe just clicked. You know the rest of Pink Diamond’s story. And.. with Spinel here just telling you hers, and never having met her prior to two weeks ago..

“Spinel?” You meet her gaze, and she’s looking at you nervously. You feel wide awake now.

“Hm?”

“How long did you wait for Pink Diamond to come back?” She tears her gaze from yours immediately. This terrible feeling of nausea and dread bubble up in your stomach, making you nearly instantaneously feel like shit.

She mumbles something so quiet that you can’t make out anything she just said.

“Wanna repeat that?”

“Six thousand years, give or take a little.”

You feel your eyes widen in surprise, and nearly choke on your own saliva.

“You.. six thousand years.”

“Yep.”

“You questioned nothing?”   
  
“I thought about it, but if she came back and I wasn’t there..”

“What made you finally leave? Considering you  _ must _ know by now that-”

“It was Steven’s broadcast. I figured it out after that.”

You both stare at each other for several long moments while you attempt to sort this information out in your head.

Wow. It all makes sense now. There’s a lot to unpack here. God, you.. You feel like shit. She must have warped directly to you guys as soon as she saw that message. She wasn’t exactly kidding when she was talking about a fresh wound.

Sure, it doesn’t excuse her trying to murder Steven, but now you just feel terrible that you’ve kinda been an asshole to her this entire time and she just.. yikes. She clearly needed someone to talk to. She doesn’t even seem like the same gem that used you for a human meat shield two weeks ago. How in the world did she not go insane from being isolated for so long? Er, aside from.. You know. When you first met. How has she gone from thousands of years of silence,  _ thousands _ of years with no touch, or talking to anyone, all by herself.. to.. to this. Stuck on a shitty planet, and with  _ you _ . It is her fault, but..

You don’t even know how to proceed from here. You seriously feel like you need to go outside to clear your head to just.. absorb all of this. 

“Why aren't you saying anything?" She interrupts your thoughts, sounding quietly concerned. 

"I'm a bit at a loss of words here. You're gonna have to give me a second." You inhale and exhale, gathering your thoughts. "So.. wow. Wasn't expecting that from Pink Diamond, but knowing so much about her? I'm honestly not surprised at all."

“Yeah I’ve.. had a lot of time to think about it.”

“No kidding.” You say, still in a bit of shock at this. “And look, she’s even plaguing your dreams subconsciously.”   
  
“Is there a way I can get them to stop?” She asks you, fumbling with the edge of the cloth between her fingers.

“I’m gonna be real with you here.” You sigh, pushing your hair a bit out of your face. “I only ever got my really bad nightmares to kind of go away by confronting the issue at hand.”

“Which was?”

“I needed to face everything I was scared and insecure about.” You say, and Spinel’s eyes meet yours.

“I.. uh. I don’t know how to do that.” She says, very quietly. The silence of the room envelops around you, and you watch her eyes flicker between yours. 

You feel like whatever you say next might cause your relationship with her to change a little, somehow.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

Her eyes open slightly wider, mouth hanging in surprise. “ _ You _ want me to talk?” 

“Do you have any other choice to talk to anyone else here?” You have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes.

“No..”

“Anyway, I’m your only option, so.”

“I don’t even know what to say.” She says, fingers gripping around the fabric, clenching them tightly.

“Honestly,” You start, “I didn’t approach anyone with my shit. Steven actually forced me to sit down and talk to him about it, because he could tell I was miserable and losing sleep over it.”

“He sounds like a good person.”   
  
“He is. I don’t know what I’d do without him.” You pause, and she looks slightly guilty at what you just said. “But he made me realize I was putting too much on me, and blaming myself for everything when no one is perfect. So..” You take another breath. “What exactly are you feeling here, in these nightmares?”

“Anger. Hurt. And this intense hollow feeling in my chest.” She flicks her gaze away from you kind of.. nervously.

“Makes sense, all things considered. Is there something that you can’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard you try?” You watch her bite her lip in between her teeth, eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah.” She says, softly. “The indescribable feeling of standing there waiting for her, wondering how long it’s been since I last saw her, wondering if something really bad had happened. Then watching Steven’s broadcast about peace and prosperity, finally realizing she literally left me and made new friends, and doesn’t even exist anymore.”

Silence fills the room for several seconds. You feel your chest tightening; her sad, defeated tone striking a chord inside you.

“What an asshole.” You accidentally say out loud, and slap your hand over your mouth. “Sorry, I know that isn’t helpful.” Her face twitches in an almost smile, and that causes some kind of feeling to bubble inside you that you squash down to not analyze later.

“No, you’re right. I just wish I could say something to her.” She sighs.

“And what exactly would you say to her?” You ask, and she meets your eyes briefly before purposefully staring at her hands instead.

“I’d tell her that she’s a half-rate diamond who sucks at playing hide-and-seek.” She pauses for a second, like she’s mulling over something before saying it. “And then I’d ask her..” She trails off, mumbling slightly, and you can’t hear a word of it. She’s very purposefully not meeting your eyes now.

“Could you repeat that last part?”

“I.. I’d also maybe ask her if there was anything I had done to make her leave me there.” She says very quietly, and you barely manage to hear it.

You.. you stare at her. You can see a small amount of tears welling up in her eyes, and your heart breaks for her, just a little.

“Spinel.” You say, and she looks to you, lips trembling like she’s about to cry. “There was nothing you could have done to  _ make _ her abandon you like that.”

“Look, I clearly deserved that,” She says, voice filled with raw emotion. A tear spills down her face, and she wipes it away quickly. “Because why else would she have done that?”

“No one deserves that. Period.” You state factly, and you want no room for argument about it. “And I don’t know, because prior to this.. no one had mentioned your existence at all. She didn’t tell anyone about you.”

“Hearing that out loud makes it hurt so much worse.” She laughs, and chokes back a quiet sob, wiping more tears away from her face. You feel like your stomach just dropped, and something grips your chest cavity tightly.

“I didn’t mean it like..”

“It’s fine. It’s all her fault, anyway. I’ll get over it eventually.”

“Spinel..” You trail off, unable to form the right words. You don’t really know how to make this any better. You feel awkward and miserable, and you’re rethinking every interaction you’ve had with Spinel up to now with the new information. 

She.. she basically clung onto you at first because she absolutely did not know how to deal with her own abandonment issues and isolation. You’re trying to not blame yourself for your own self preservation, but you feel extremely guilty that you didn’t try to understand her sooner. Because technically, you’ve been a complete dick to her for the last week unnecessarily. Even when she was nice to you.

“I’m sorry.”

She looks up at you, wiping another tear away. She looks miserable, and with her shoulders trembling like that, she seems so small. Small and unthreatening, unlike when you first met her.

“Why? What do you have to be sorry about?”

“I haven’t exactly been super nice to you, like, at all.” You answer bluntly.

“So? It’s not like I gave you a reason to like me. I trapped you here with me, I don’t deserve any kindness.”

“Yeah, well. I’m still sorry.” You shrug, watching her avoid your eyes again. “And.. I think everyone deserves a bit of kindness.” She makes a face like she’s about to protest, so you speak up before she tries anything. “Don’t argue with me about this.”

She opens and shuts her mouth, and continues to avoid your eyes.

“Okay.” She says, and the room fills with silence again. 

A minute or so passes while you lay there, the sound of your own breathing the only thing you can hear. Eventually her eyes trail over to yours, and you make eye contact. You both look at each other for several long moments, neither of you breaking the quiet. You can see her gem peeking out of the tarp she’s covered with, chest moving slightly with every intake of breath. Her eyes look.. so tired. 

“Um..” She shifts her body slightly under the tarp, pressing her face further onto the pile. “I think maybe I should sleep.”   
  
“It would be a decent idea, yeah.” You reply. Neither of you move.

“Y/N?” She asks.

“Hm?”

“Thanks.”

“For?” 

“Listening.” She blinks slowly, and you can visibly see her shoulders deflate.

“Don’t mention it.” You say, and give her a half smile.

You pull the cloth up to your face, the smell of dust hitting your nostrils. You don’t really mind. She does the same and you make eye contact with her again, feeling the air between you two change slightly. You don’t really know how to describe it, but.. it’s different.

You find yourself falling asleep facing her this time. 

It doesn’t bother you.


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am trying to get updates out faster, honestly. Life just really be testing me lately.

You find your sleep to be restless, despite the better sleeping conditions this time. 

Having no idea what time it is, you blink open your heavy eyelids to come face to face with a sleeping Spinel. She’s barely three inches from your face, and when you scoot back to give yourself some much needed breathing room, your back hits the wall immediately. Ah. Somehow she’s cornered you in her sleep. You lay there for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to move to get up and go to the bathroom without waking her.

You can’t really get out from the area above your head since you’re in the corner, but if you move downwards, you have to move all of Spinel’s limbs which are very much all up in your personal space, risking waking her. And you don’t want to do that, since she obviously needs to rest.

It’s during these few moments you’re wondering what to do when Spinel mumbles something unintelligible in her sleep (that almost.. sounds like your name), and her hand shoots out to grasp the middle of the front of the shirt you’re wearing. 

What the hell. Of course she makes this difficult for you even when she’s unconscious.

Very slowly you move your hand to grab her wrist, barely able to pry her fingers from the piece of clothing without making much of a commotion. As soon as you set her hand back down, she grabs your hand with hers instead, pulling your whole arm closer to her. Okay seriously? You look back up to her face and she’s still passed out cold, tarps pressed into the side of her face, mouth slightly open.

With your other arm you reach down to pry her hand out of yours, finding it increasingly difficult to not curse out loud at her for this. Her grip is a little tighter this time, of course, and you roll your eyes at the entirety of this situation at this point. You tug on her fingers once, twice, and in a split second she grabs you with both of her arms, winding hers around your torso as she slams you into her chest, face first. You let out an “oomph” as she throws her leg over yours.

You can’t breathe so you move your face over to the side, cheek almost painfully pressed into her gem. Hearing her breathe next to your ear, your whole body feels like it’s on fire right now for some reason, but mainly, your bladder is yelling at you. You clear your throat in annoyance.

“Spinel.” You say out loud.

Nothing.

“Spinel.” You move yourself enough to jostle her. 

“Mm.” She grunts in response.

“I need to go to the bathroom.” You can see her face twitch in tired irritation, but she still hasn’t opened her eyes.

“Then go to the bathroom. Why are you telling me.” 

“I don't know, why don't you see for yourself.” You say, humorlessly.

Her eyes shoot open and find yours immediately. It takes her approximately 5 whole seconds, and one slow blink of your face pressed against her gem for her to realize what she’s doing.

She squawks like you just pinched her arm and quickly removes all of her limbs from your body, scrambling backwards from you. She takes the entire tarp with her, leaving you feeling a bit exposed in the cold air.

"Sorry, I-I wasn't trying to.. I didn't mean to.." she trails off, and you can see her face light up like a tomato. It's almost strangely endearing, if it wasn't so hilarious.

"Keep that up, and you'll end up strangling me in your sleep." You say amusedly, standing up and stretching your arms. Spinel's still in her pile, presumably still reeling from her earlier position.

"That's a bit dramatic, don't ya' think?"

"The more I tried to get away, the tighter you squeezed me against your gem. I really thought I was gonna break some bones there." You pat down your clothes, clouds of dust falling off of them and into the air around you. "Anyway I'll be back. I'm gonna grab some food while I'm out there, and then I'm gonna explore the rest of the Spire above us to see if there's anything we could use."

"Sounds like a plan. I was gonna check on the computer to see if anything improved overnight on the corrupted data. Kinda hoping we'd get some planet insight today." She moves to get up, and you head out of the Spire.

It's hot as usual outside, and you make quick work of relieving yourself before you forage around for some food. Now that you've got a lot to do ahead of you, you find yourself looking forward to keeping yourself busy. It'll give you time to mull over what happened last night.

It doesn't take you long to find some food, and once you grab enough to fill both arms, you head back to the Spire. With a whoosh of the doors closing behind you, you see Spinel hunkered down at the console as you set down your food on the nearest empty surface. You walk over to her, and she's clearly absorbed in reading something on the screen.

"What are you reading?" You ask her, curious.

"The datalogs of the colony's progress during their time here. Most of it is still corrupted, but the backup should be done pretty soon and by then hopefully most of it should be readable."

“What have you got so far?”

“Boring stuff, mainly. They did mention that the soil was very rich in something here, though.” She replies, eyes moving back and forth upon the screen.

“That is terribly boring, you weren’t lying.” You shrug in her general direction. “I’ll be heading upwards anyway, so if you end up finding something  _ actually _ interesting, holler at me.”

She simply nods her head in response, eyes lingering on you a bit longer than necessary.

You head up the staircase in the back, making the immediate mistake of trailing your fingers along the railing. Your hand comes back black with dust, and you have to hold back a gag while shaking it off. It basically sticks to your skin. 

When you get up to the second floor you feel the air change a little, and it smells mustier. You figure it’ll probably be worse the higher you go, if there’s no area inside exposed to outside air. There’s just.. a bunch of stone statues in this room. You walk over to a large group of them, footsteps loud in this empty, quiet room. The statues are of course, caked with dust, like everything else in this place. You can make out a couple gems, but.. these are so old that you have no idea if they were supposed to be important figures or not. Not that it would have mattered to you. 

There’s a lone statue covered by a tarp in the corner, and you walk over to it with curiosity. You grab the hem of the tarp, and pull it away from the statue to reveal.. A cloud of dust. You cough several times, and when the dust clears enough, you can see a figure. You realize that this statue is just unfinished, and there’s no face. It’s actually a little creepy, so you put the tarp back on it. That can stay under there. Looking around the room once more, you don’t really see anything else that stands out. So you meander your way back over to the staircase, and go up another flight.

When you get to the third floor, you trip on the final stair, and catch yourself on the several crates in front of you. A loud crash resounds around the room as the one from the top of the stack falls off and breaks open, wood splinters going everywhere. When you finally manage to right yourself, you bend down to inspect what spilled out of the broken crate.

Moving several large pieces of broken wood aside, you see several identical medium-sized objects in some type of packing filler. You pick one up - it’s cold to the touch, so it’s some type of metal. Turning it around in your hands slowly.. it seems like a part of a machine. To what kind of machine, exactly, is the question though.

You check the other crates - they’re just filled with more of the same type of objects, and lots of it. There’s probably near 40 crates in this room, and you haven’t even checked them all. You figure you’ll come back up here with Spinel later sometime, hopefully she knows if you can find a use out of any of it. 

Walking up another flight of stairs, you find the next three floors to be completely empty. You almost figure there’s probably nothing else up here and are ready to head back down, but you get a gut feeling to keep going regardless.

By the time you get to the seventh floor, your legs feel tired already. Well, specifically your knees. These giant, long staircases and the fucked up gravity really aren’t helping. The air smells a little clearer up here, so you guess that you’re probably near some kind of opening. 

There are more crates and boxes covered in tarp in here. You walk over to the crates to see if it was the same stuff in the lower floors, but once you dig your hand inside, you feel cloth instead. You grab the corner of the wooden lid, prying it off the top. There are bundles upon bundles of soft white cloth, as well as some other stuff. You move the cloth over to dig down a little more, and your hand finds another box at the bottom.

You lift the box out of the crate, peering at the contents inside once you take off the lid. There’s.. more cloth, an assortment of blades, some string, and a needle. This kind of looks like a really, really crude first aid kit. What the hell? Why would gems have something like this? They aren’t flesh, they don’t need something like this. You put the box back in the crate, and figure you’ll just ask Spinel about this later as well.

The rest of the boxes contain some dusty, archaic looking technology, some written manuals in gem, and some hand tools. Some of those tools could come in handy actually. You’ll grab some on the way back down, you think to yourself.

The next floor is filled with the same type of supplies. Honestly you’re not gonna lie, you were kind of hoping there’d be some better stuff in here. You’re doing your best in not freaking out, as you rightfully could do. It’s been what, a bit over two weeks? You’re starting to lose track of time here, and it’s making you anxious.

You move up to the next floor before you let your thoughts go wild, and you can hear wind quite clearly. When you reach the top of the staircase this time, your eyes roam over to the opposite wall. There’s about an eight foot large gap in the exterior where age and decay got the best of this wall, and you can see outside. The staircase that continues upwards has crumbled to pieces, making the rest of the Spire inaccessible to you. 

Walking into the middle of the room where the sun rays from outside can hit your feet, you pause for a moment to let the wind graze your skin, giving you slight goosebumps. You should probably rest here for a moment, before heading back down. You walk over to the edge and take a seat, letting the breeze make its way through your hair. With the giant red sun high overhead hitting you with its warmth, you feel like you could probably take a nap here. You raise your knee up, winding one arm around it, and resting your chin on the top.

It’s.. strangely peaceful right here. You can see the jungle for miles up this high. Sometimes, you’ll get a glimpse of something that makes you think you’re back home on Earth, and you’ll get these really intense feelings of homesickness. You squash down those feelings right now, and watch the edges of the horizon.

You’ve probably been up here, away from Spinel for nearly two hours, now that you think about it. And she hasn’t come up here to bother you, or check up on you. You’re guessing she hasn’t found anything interesting so far.

Speaking of Spinel.. you kick your one leg over the edge, stretching it out. You wonder how she’s doing. Not like how she’s feeling right now, per say, but.. in general. You can’t really imagine what’s been going on inside her head this entire time, now knowing what she’s been through. 

Fucking Pink Diamond. Of course she’d do that. Honestly, you’re kind of glad Steven doesn’t know yet, and wasn’t present for that conversation. As much as you miss him and don’t want to be here, you’re grateful that the teen didn’t have to hear yet another fucked up thing his mother has done to someone. He’s already stressed over how much his mom made everything worse for him anyway. He has enough on his plate.

You wonder how the others are doing. You hope that they’re all okay, and that they are somehow finding a way to get you. Did Steven ever get that beacon signal? Did the gems get your SOS yet? Wondering about these things is starting to eat you alive with worry. What if they wiped this planet off all star maps and they can’t find you? Will you be stuck here, forever, with Spinel? The thought sets your heart racing, and you place an open palm upon your chest.

Calm down. You’ll be fine. Don’t think about the ‘what ifs’.

You’re a bit lost in thought, keeping yourself from spiraling further into some kind of anxiety attack, when you hear footsteps coming up the stairs behind you. 

“Wow, took me a while to get to ya’.” Spinel says, hand trailing along the wall, looking around the room curiously. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so high up.”

Her eyes eventually stop on you, and she pauses, watching you for a moment. Her gaze lingers on you for a while, before she walks over to you and sits down, mirroring your body position along the edge.

“Yeah, I wasn’t thinking there would be much up here. I was mainly curious so I kept going.” You reply eventually. The sun is making you sleepy, and you find yourself wanting to lay down. “Did you find anything within the datalogs?”

“No, I actually came up here due to boredom. The system restore is taking much, much longer than I originally thought.”

“Give the tech a break, it hasn’t been used in.. who knows how long.” 

“I mean, you’re right. I’m just a little frustrated.” She says, and lets out a long breath. Her eyes are looking out into the distance, observing the jungle expanse beyond you.

“Did you just say I was right?” You smirk. “I knew you’d see the light eventually.” She gives you a dumbfounded look.

“I didn’t.. Okay, I’m never saying that again.” She replies, and you find yourself laughing at that. 

She looks a little surprised at your laughter, and her gaze lingers on your face for far too long. 

"I think this is the first time I've heard you laugh." She says to you while shaking her head a bit, and tears her eyes away from you to look off into the distance again.

"I'm pretty sure I've laughed before." You reply, and you look over to her. It's like she's not looking at you on purpose for some reason. 

Your eyes catch on the little hairs at the edge of her hairline by the back of her neck, wavering in the breeze. Her pigtails swaying slightly in the wind, shoulders relaxed with her hands by her side, she looks.. peaceful. It makes you feel something, but you're not quite sure what yet.

"Maybe, but never in my presence." 

"You kind of have to actually be funny for me to laugh, you know." You reply, and she whips her face back to you, expression that of a gaping fish.

"WHAT!? I'm funny! How could you!" She cries out, her tone defensive.

"Yeah? What's your best joke? Lay it on me, I'll be the judge of that." You switch the knee you're leaning on, and face Spinel.

She opens her mouth to say something, and then closes it again. 

"Right now?" She asks.

"Yes."

"I can't just  _ tell _ a joke, I gotta prepare for it. The delivery matters." She raises an eyebrow at you, and pushes some of the fringe out of her face.

"No it doesn't." You stare at her, and she narrows her eyes like she's challenging you. "Hold on."

You clear your throat, and she looks at you expectantly.

"How does a universe throw a party?" You ask, and wait to see if she'll answer with something. Her eyes look away momentarily in thought, and then she just shrugs.

"They plan-et!" You force out and hold back a chuckle. You hate this joke, but Steven absolutely loves it because of the face you always make with the last word. And it was the only one you could think of.

Spinel is just staring at you, and after a few seconds you see the corner of her mouth twitch, and she blinks several times in succession. She lets out a small "pffft" before covering her mouth with her hand.

"Did you just laugh a lit-"

"No." She cuts you off quickly. "That was terrible, by the way."

"Yes I know it's an awful joke, but you totally just laughed a little. I heard it. Proves that I'm funny, er, funnier than you at least." 

"That did not prove anything!" She furrows her eyebrows in offense. "Other than me not being able to come up with a joke on the spot."

"Sad clown you are." 

She sputters and laughs a little, enough for her shoulders to shake.

"I'm not a clown you ass! God, are all humans like this?" 

"I like to think that most of us are." You say with a grin.

You both settle into a silence, and this time, it's kind of.. easy. You let the sun and wind caress your face for several long minutes, feeling relaxed for once. You don't really wanna walk all the way back down at all right now. Your legs still kinda hurt.

"Can I ask you something?" You hear her say, and you turn to look at her. 

"Yeah?"

"What were you doing before all of this?"

"You mean before you kidnapped me?" You reply, and she looks a bit sheepish at that. "Why are you asking?" 

"I was just curious, and also I might've just realized that technically I don't actually know a lot about you, despite you knowing basically everything about me."

“Well, um,” You pause for a moment to gather your thoughts. She’s right. “I was really just helping Steven with everything surrounding Little Homeworld.”   
  
“Little.. Homeworld?” She asks, perplexed. “On Earth?”

“Oh, right. You don’t know. You said you saw Steven’s broadcast, yeah?” She nods. “After he got the Diamonds to stop their tyranny, he wanted to try helping the gems who wanted to learn basic skills that were different from what they’re used to. So they can like, have an easier time transitioning to daily life on Earth and stuff. That’s Little Homeworld.”

“So much has happened and I wasn’t there to see any of it.” She contemplates. “I don’t really know how to take all of the changes.”   
  
“If it makes you feel any better at all, the majority of this happened in the last three years.”

“It doesn’t, but.. wait the last three years!? That’s absurd.” She raises her eyebrows in confusion. “No one has ever challenged the Diamonds like that before with any results.”

“Well, when you’re your own mother, things kinda end up different.” You kick your leg out, watching it swing in the breeze.

“I’m gonna need you to explain that a little better, because it doesn’t make any sense to me.” She stares at you, furrowing her eyebrows. “How did Pink Diamond disappear?”

“Er,” You cough into your hand, unsure how to explain this properly. “So, I’m gonna try to keep this short since it’s a long story. It didn’t start with Steven.” 

“Huh?” She seems pretty engaged now.

“Yeah, it was Pink herself. Once she got her colony on Earth, she realized that there were organic beings here and she no longer wanted to harm it. That didn’t go over well with the other Diamonds at all, as you can imagine. So.. she staged a rebellion to save the planet after faking her own shattering.”

_ “What?”  _ She says, disbelief written all over her face. “There was a _ rebellion _ !? How much did I miss?” 

“You said you were waiting for her for what, six thousand years? The rebellion actually happened a few hundred years after she initially left you, I think. Because that was over five thousand years ago.” 

She stares at you, blinking. You know it’s a lot to take in.

“Anyway, she disguised herself as a Rose quartz, the leader of the Crystal Gems against the rebellion. The one who shattered a Diamond. War lasts a thousand years, but the Earth wins. After that, she stays on Earth with the Crystal Gems for a couple thousand years while the Diamonds continue their tirade across the rest of the universe.”

“Okay, but where does Steven come in?” She asks.

“I’m getting to that, I told you it’s a long story.” You roll your eyes at her. “She met Greg around twenty five years ago, and decided she wanted to have a kid with him.”

“Who’s Greg?”

“A human.” 

“She.. had a kid with a human.” The look of utter confusion on her face is absolutely hilarious. “How.”

“You know how organic beings reproduce right?” You ask her with a slight smirk.

“Yes, I know how mating works for biological beings. I just didn’t know that it was possible.. for a gem and a human..” You watch her trail off a bit, color rising in her cheeks.

“Well, there was a catch, kinda. Gems don’t reproduce the same way humans do, so.. she shapeshifted herself a womb I’m guessing, and when it was time for him to be born she gave up her physical form.”

“She didn’t.. die?” She asks, squinting her eyes. The sun casts long shadows against the floor. 

“No, it wasn’t a death really. That’s why it was so hard for the rest of the gems to adjust to Pink being gone. Steven has her powers, so everyone assumed that he was just Pink Diamond. It caused..  _ so _ many problems.” You sigh, and blow some hair out of your face. The wind makes your fringe tickle your nose annoyingly. “Anyway, he fought a lot of gems to get this far, but eventually he got the Diamonds to understand him. So.. now there’s no more colonizing, no more planet destroying, no more forced labor. Gems are free to do whatever they want now. That’s what Steven managed to accomplish all by showing some giant space tyrants how to love themselves and others properly.”

Spinel stares at your face for a long moment, deep in thought.

“I.. really regret the way I reacted to everything after learning the truth. Anger fueled me so much that I..“ She breaks eye contact with you. “I am sorry for trying to kill Steven. I hope you know.”

You watch her for several seconds, fumbling with her fingers anxiously in her lap.

“I know.” You speak up. “There’s nothing you can do about it now, but I forgive you. If that means anything.” 

She looks up and her eyes meet yours, relieved expression on her face, and there are some unspoken words that pass between you two. 

“Oh,” She speaks up. “That explains what went on this entire time, but not about you.”   
  
“Right, back to that.” You clear your throat, pushing away any weird feelings. “I never had a good relationship with my biological family, so I started basically living with the Crystal Gems a few months after becoming Steven’s babysitter. And from there on, I was honestly just his bodyguard. Kid has been close to encountering death too many times to count for my liking.”

“..how old are you?” She asks you apprehensively. 

“22..” You squint your eyes at her. “Why?”

“I would’ve felt even worse about taking you if you were much younger than that. I can never tell with organics.” She sheepishly rubs the back of her head.

“How old are you?” 

“Wayyy older than you.” She answers with a shrug. “Hard to keep count.”

“That’s.. fair.” You reply, leaning most of your weight on your knee. You watch the jungle in the distance, feeling your stomach ache in hunger. “Should probably head back down soon, even if I’d rather jump down to be honest. My knees are killing me.”

“You’d die.” She glares at you disdainfully.

“Eh, I’d be fine.” You reply in jest, and chuckle. “I’d walk it off.”

“You wouldn’t even have legs.” She lifts herself off the ground from her sitting position, mindful of the edge she’s near. The drop below  _ is _ quite a distance. “Let alone the ability to walk.”

She turns to you and offers you a hand, almost shy in its nature. You look at her for a moment, watching the facets of her gem sparkle in the sunlight, twintails gently swaying in the breeze. You reach out and grasp her hand, and she looks almost surprised that you’ve taken it. You brush yourself off once you lift yourself off the stone ground, wobbling slightly on your legs.

“I’m sure I’d be fine. Pretty sure I’m invincible.” You cock an eyebrow at her, and turn to head down the stairs. 

By the time it takes you to walk over to the top of the staircase, you realize Spinel isn’t next to you. You turn around to see that she’s still standing in the same position near the edge, hand still out slightly, and staring at you with a strange expression.

“Uh.. you coming?” You ask her. She shakes her head as if to clear her thoughts.

“Yeah. Sorry. Just lost in thought for a moment there.” She says as she catches up to you, and you both take the stairs together.

You both chat about nothing in particular on your way back down, and you find the time passing fairly quickly. Quickly enough to get back down to the base level before you realize that you were going to ask her about the parts in the crates a few floors up.

“Oh shoot, I actually found some stuff up there earlier I was going to ask you about actually. You managed to distract me enough on the way back down that I forgot about it.” You turn to face her.

“Not my fault. I ain’t a mind reader.” She raises an eyebrow at you, walking back over to the console immediately. “We can go back up later sometime. It’s not as if this place is goin’ anywhere.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m just tired I guess.” You walk over to the food that you had set down earlier, picking up a piece of fruit and bringing it up to your face to take a bite. “Did it finish doing it’s restoration yet?”

“Yeah actually. I’m loading the files right now.” 

You watch her eyes flit back and forth over the screen in concentration. It looks like she’s reading whatever text is on the screen. You take a bite of the fruit, chewing it slowly, watching Spinel’s face as she flips through whatever data logs she’s looking at. Maybe you should’ve let Pearl actually teach you the gem language back when she offered to a couple years ago. Back then, you thought you’d never have use for it, but.. hindsight’s a bitch. Can’t do anything about it now.

Spinel’s eyebrows furrow a bit further as she narrows her eyes at the screen in front of her. After a few seconds, she looks up and catches your gaze.

“Ya’ might wanna see this.”


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my eyes hurt

You finish chewing your current bite of food, walking quickly over to Spinel.

“What? What’s in there?” You say as you get over to her side, leaning near her to peer at the screen properly. The screen is filled with rows of unreadable text. "What does the text say? I can't read it." 

"I'm still reading this one.. hold on." You watch her read the text for several moments before she rips her eyes from the screen, looking at you with a confused expression.

“What?” You ask her. “You’re making me anxious.”

“Er..” She lifts her hand up, and points at a line of text near the top of the window. “This is kinda weird here. They noticed several bismuth’s and a lapis went missing after only being here a few weeks. A lot of this is just daily logs so I’m having to wade through a lot of garbage info.”

“Did they say why they went missing? Did they ever find those gems?” 

“No, actually.” She scrunches her face, perplexed. “The logs continue with some geological and temperature readings. They did mention in here that they came to this planet to take it's resources because it's got limited time left. Something about the dying sun this planet revolves."

“Yeah, have you seen that giant red thing up there? It's kind of atrocious. What else have you got?” You lean a bit further near Spinel, practically hovering over her lap at this point, but you’re having a hard time seeing the screen. You think your eyesight has somehow gotten worse on this planet.

“It seems like they also observed that the animal life on the surface is mainly nocturnal, with quite a few notes on a couple particular subspecies of canine.” She replies, and pulls up a few pictures that are attached to this file. She flips through a couple, having never seen any of these creatures that you are looking at on the console right now. After a few, she gets to one you almost recognise immediately.

“Oh!” You exclaim and point at the image, and she looks at you almost startled. “I’ve seen this one. It was small, but it looked  _ just _ like that picture.”

“You  _ saw _ this?” She asks, eyebrows raising up her forehead almost comically. “When!? I haven’t seen anything aside from that thing by the lake!”

“Remember that night you found me on that hill?”

“You mean the night you tried running away?” She attempts to correct you.

“That wasn’t what I was doing. Anyway, I ran into one of those little guys that night. Scared the shit out of me. I managed to run away from it before any more showed up, though.”

“Well, it explains why we haven’t seen like, any of them at all.” She continues to click through the images, and you don’t recognise anything else. All the creatures that inhabit this planet look super weird compared to anything else you’ve seen.

She gets into another file and starts reading, and you patiently wait for her to let you know what it says. After a few seconds, she moves to a different file. She gets through three before you interrupt her.

“Are you gonna read any of this out loud, or am I going to have to guess?”

“Sorry, there’s not much in some of these. I’m skimming to get through all of the boring supply checklists and kindergarten charts.” She glances at you and how close you are to her, and quickly looks back to the screen.

“Okay.” You sigh, and lean back a little. 

“Hm,” She says, narrowing her eyes at the screen. “This entire file is still corrupted aside from the pictures. Think they’ll load?”

“Won’t know until you try.” You say, eyes glued to the console. She loads into the file, and the image is just black. She clicks to the next one, and that’s also just a black image.

“Well, that sucks.” She says a bit disappointedly. 

“Keep going.” You reply, and you see the next image also be blank, but the one after that is a very clear picture of a damaged injector. The glass and steel of the casing is completely mangled, and all of the fluid is drained due to there being a giant chunk taken out of the side.

“What the.” You hear Spinel say, and she clicks to the next image, showing similar injectors in similar conditions. There are just several images in this file of broken, unusable injectors in what looks to be like a kindergarten. You think it looks like the one that’s nearby, but you can’t be sure. “What happened to all this equipment? Did the gems stage a small rebellion and destroy all of this?”

“Did any of the other information allude to that?” You turn to ask her. “Otherwise that makes little sense. Er, well.. there were those gems that went missing, so it’s not a completely out-there theory.”

“I’m hoping the further we go, the more likely we’ll get answers.”

She continues to wade through files, and you lean forward against the console, tired. She seems to be focusing pretty hard on reading for the both of you, and occasionally she takes long glances at you when she thinks you’re not looking at her. Except you can see her do it out of the corner of your eye, and now you’re worried you have something on your face.

“Spinel.” You address her, and she doesn’t look up from the screen she’s reading.

“Hm.” She grunts out.

“You keep looking at my face. Is there food on it?” You ask her, swiping down your cheek to feel for particles of anything. She glances up at your face anxiously before her expression changes to one more neutral, and shakes her head.

“There isn’t. I’m just having a hard time focusing, so I keep spacing out.”

“By staring at my face?” You say half in jest, and raise an eyebrow at her.

“You’re kind of right in my personal space, so. Yeah.” She replies, deadpan. Her eyes manage to catch on something on the screen, and her expression turns a little more serious. 

“What did you find?”

“Look. More gems went missing here. They have a record of up to.. thirty-six. All different gems.” She turns her head to face you, meeting your eyes. “There aren’t any records of them reappearing.”

“Where would they even go?” 

“Do ya’ think they hated this planet as much as we did and actually succeeded in leaving?” She continues reading, and her eyes skim quite a few more lines at the bottom before getting comically large in shock. “Wait.. no. It got higher than that. Here they have an update with over a hundred and sixty-seven missing after just a few weeks.”   
  
“What the fuck? How are they even going missing! How do they not notice when a whole squad of quartzes just.. disappear!?” You hear your voice echo out throughout the room.

“Your guess is about as good as mine. Seems like a whole bunch of these logs are still corrupted though.” She huffs out a sigh, and stretches her arms above her head before concentrating back on the console. You’re starting to feel a migraine coming on soon. You should probably go out for fresh air just to give yourselves a break.

"Kinda makes sense though, why the Spire is only half finished." You bring up your hand to rub at your right temple, attempting to ease some of the throbbing. "Probably stopped production due to the rapidly disappearing gems."

"This also mentions frequent ground quakes, and the appearance of those holes, but nothing more than that." She looks at you tiredly, and sighs. "The last few files after this are completely unreadable from the corruption."

"So, let me get this straight." You clear your throat. "These gems get to this planet to start a kindergarten, they notice a few weird things going on. Injectors are being utterly wrecked, more and more gems keep going missing without a trace, and holes are popping up around everywhere."

"Yeah." She says, giving you an 'this is obvious' expression.

"Is this not really fucking weird to you?"

"Of course it's weird! I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it! I've never even  _ heard _ of this happening to a colony, and I was Pink's best friend!"

"Okay well," You stand up from your leaning position, cracking your back in the process. "I think I should get some fresh air or something, because if I stand still any longer while thinking about all of this, I'm going to go  _ crazy _ ."

She's staring at you for a moment, before lazily shrugging. "Have fun with that."

"Do you not want to come with?" You ask her, raising an eyebrow in question. "You seem like you could also use a break."

"You.. want to spend time with  _ me _ ?" She asks, perplexed, pointing a finger to her chest.

You give her an unamused look, and make a point to look to either side of her, before meeting her gaze again. 

"Is there anyone else here, Spinel?"

"I mean,  _ no _ , but-"

"Then let's go." You say, leaving no room for questions. You swivel around on your foot, and head for the entrance to leave the Spire, hearing Spinel sigh behind you.

The doors open with a whoosh, and the heavy heat of the afternoon hits you immediately. You breathe in the thick, humid air of this planet, glancing at Spinel next to you. She looks visibly irritated at the hot temperature around you two. She must've gotten used to the inside of the Spire, as it was darker and much cooler in there.

"Ugh, feels awful out here." She says, voice dripping with disgust.

"I've had hotter summers." You shrug, and pick a direction to walk in, spotting an opening in the thick of the jungle treeline. "I've also accidentally set myself on fire one time, and that was a bit worse than this."

Spinel sputters behind you and you stop your pace to look at her. "How do you set yourself on fire!?" She cries out in confusion.

"You trip into the campfire you're making." You chuckle, and keep walking. You make the mistake of brushing your hand against one of the nearby trees, and your hand has sap all over it when you pull away.

"Not entirely sure how humans have survived as a species." She scoffs beside you, matching your walking pace.

"Sheer spite, honestly. It gets you places." You try to wipe your hand off on your pants, and you can see Spinel glancing at what you're trying and failing to do. She attempts to curb herself from laughing at you. Asshole.

"Does it really? I feel like that gets you killed more often than not." She says, and you can almost hear the withheld laughter in her voice. It infuriates you, but only a little.

"How would you know?" You reply, tone mocking. "How many humans have you met?"

"Only you, but I feel like you're an outlier if we're going by examples." 

"Wow, rude." You roll your eyes at her, and you can hear some water trickling off to the side, so you decide to follow it. "You're not what I'd call a prime example of a gem either."

"Yeah, well, how many gems have  _ you _ met?" She nearly trips on a large tree root, and you almost laugh out loud at the way her arms comically flail about before she catches herself. She glares at you when she finds her balance, like it was your fault somehow.

"Quite a few actually! Enough to know that you're all a little bit bastard on the inside at least. Except for Steven, he's only half. And a total sweetheart." The two of you get closer to the sound, and you realize that it's a small waterfall attached to a pool of water, and that leads to a brook that keeps going beyond where you can see it.

"I resent that statement." She wipes her forehead, some of her hair sticking to the sides of her face. She looks at the water longingly, and you get an idea.

"Wanna relax here for a while?" You ask her, watching her face. She looks at you thoughtfully, like she's thinking you have some kind of sinister motive.

"..if ya' wanna, sure." She replies, and you shrug, heading over to the waterfall.

"Seems like a decent idea, with the heat and all." You bend down to slip off your shoes, almost losing your balance in the process. Setting your shoes off to the side, you dip your feet into the cool water. It feels nice on your skin. You look over to Spinel who is watching you, and you walk over to a large nearby rock to take a seat. "You gonna just stand there and stare, or what?" You say, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

"Right." She replies with a shake of her head, as if to clear her thoughts. She mimics you in taking off her boots, slipping them off and setting them down next to the side of a tree.

"Can't you just phase off your clothes?" You ask her, giving her a look.

"Sometimes I forget." She shrugs, moving over to lean against the same rock you're sitting on. She moves her foot in the water a little, making ripples across the surface. 

"How do you forget.. nevermind." You shake your head. "Wait a second, that first time I went to that lake, you swam in it fully clothed."

"Oh, that." She smirks a little. "I wouldn't do that normally, I was just making sure you weren't trying to escape."

"In a lake? You're an idiot. You freaked me out by touching my leg, though." 

"Yeah, that was on purpose actually. It seemed like it'd be fun to scare you a little."

"Remember what I said like five minutes ago? I'm doubling down. You're definitely a bastard." You glare at her, and at that, she chuckles. You find yourself almost smiling, and it irritates you immensely.

"Ya' kinda deserve it, considering the amount of times you've hit me in the face." She throws back at you.

"Don't even go there, you've smacked me around quite a bit and even sliced my forehead." You point at the healing wound on your face. "You know this is going to scar right? My poor face. Now I'll look like some kind of rugged adventurer." You sigh disdainfully. She gives you a pointed look.

"Technically, you're already one."

"Yeah, against my will." You say, and kick some water at her. She narrows her eyes slightly, and she looks like she wants to kick back.

"You look fine, anyway. Even with the scar." She says, rolling her eyes at you. "Dunno why'd you care."

"Because it's my face? Whatever. At least you didn't blind me I guess. Was kind of a close call."

"Yeah. Could've also just plain 'ol murdered ya', it would've been really easy." She says, staring at her hands. She slips one finger underneath the edge of her right glove, pulling it upwards to remove it. 

"To be fair, humans in general are just easy to kill. Like half the time we do it ourselves." You glance away. You have no idea why your heart is starting to beat a little faster? They're just hands, and she's an alien. 

“Kinda comes with the meatbag package, yeah?” You see her flop the gloves down next to you on the rocks surface.

“Don’t call us meatbags. We’re so much more than that.” You scoff at her, splashing her with another kick of water against her legs.

“Really? Doesn’t seem like it’d be all that fun.” She replies, watching her own feet in the shallow water.

“Guess it seemed fun enough for Pink, all things considered.” You say and smirk at her. “Cause you know she changed her form to-”

“Y-yeah, I know.” Spinel cuts you off, and you think you see the faintest blush on her cheeks. Which is fucking hilarious. “Pink was always the type to be overly excited about new things..” She trails off, and you watch her for a moment. She’s not looking at you - instead, she’s looking at the water below her. The afternoon rays of sunlight have breached through some of the jungle canopy, and light is reflecting off of Spinel’s gem. It sparkles a bit - blinding you with a flash of light for a second before passing. You wonder if the temperature of the gem matches with the rest of her. Actually..

“Spinel.”

“Hm?” She glances up at you.

“Why is your gem upside down? Isn’t it a heart?” You ask her. She looks at you thoughtfully.

“It used to be right side up before I reformed.” She replies with a shrug.

“You reformed?” You reiterate out loud. “Did you look any different from right now? When the crystal gems reformed, only slight things changed.”

“Not by much. My hair was different.”

“Yeah? What was it like?” You question her, actually interested.

“Er, like this,” She says, using both her hands to grab one of her pigtails and maneuvering the hair into a heart-like shape. It’s uh.. it’s actually really cute. A beat of silence passes between you two as she waits for a response from you.

You stare at her for a moment, before you have to stifle a laugh.

“Hey!” She cries out in offense, and drops her hair to reach down into the water, actually splashing you with her hands this time. It makes you actually laugh out loud.

“God, I’d  _ pay  _ to see you like that.” You say in between laughs, and for that, she splashes you again.    
  


“You’re such an ass!” She says, and looks away from you. Is she.. Is she pouting?

“I’m just saying, it sounds cute. And besides, I think you look better the way you are now.” You pull your soaked shirt away from your body, squeezing out the excess water. You don’t even care honestly, the evening heat will evaporate it quickly. “Suits you better, anyway.” You try squeezing out as much water from the rest of your shirt, but looking down at your pants, you realize they’re a bit of a lost cause. When you look back up, Spinel is staring at you with a strange expression, light blush upon her face. Your heart skips a beat.

“Regardless.” She shakes her head. “I think we should head back, and maybe discuss going over to investigate the kindergarten. It’s kind of been bothering me.”

“Yeah, same.” You sigh, kicking your feet in the water one last time.

Both of you put your shoes back on, as well as her gloves, and give each other a nod. The two of you walk side by side on the way back to the Spire, discussing several things related to your plan of possibly going over to the kindergarten in the next day or so. And maybe you also try and throw in as many jabs as you can at her, because, well. It’s fun.


	10. Ten

You get to the top of the stairs - hand still on the rail, and this time the air around you is very, very cold. You can see your breath in the moonlight, it dissipating quickly once it has the chance of escaping your lungs. The opening in the crumbling, broken wall has some light pouring in from the moons outside. You can only see two of them from your current standing position. Dropping your hand from the rail, you walk over to the open ledge and take a deep breath of the rigid jungle air beyond the Spire. It's a lovely night out tonight.

You take in the view for a while, not exactly keeping track of time. Out on the horizon, you can barely see the edge of the line of trees - the fog is fairly thick and is obscuring much of the lush greenery. The stars are barely visible tonight. Taking a step back, you notice something out of the corner of your eye, and turn your head to see Spinel quietly standing there about six feet to your right.

You almost jump, and can feel your heart beating wildly inside your chest. How did she get here without you noticing? What the fuck?

"Up here, all alone?" She finally speaks up after a moment, ghost of a smirk on her lips.

"What, am I not allowed? Maybe I came up here to think." You reply without missing a beat. The wind flows freely up here, and the bite of the cold makes you involuntarily shiver. She regards you almost.. carefully, with her gaze. She quirks an eyebrow at you, before opening her mouth again to speak.

"Ya' up here to think? Well, maybe then you'll  _ finally _ admit a couple things to yourself."

She takes one, two steps closer to you, beams of light from the moons above illuminating half her face in long, dramatic shadows. 

"Admit what?" You hear yourself asking. 

Her gaze flickers between the both of your eyes, and then she leans closer to you, close enough so you can see just how dark those marks on her cheeks are, and says:

"You-"

There's a sharp tug on your abdomen, and you are thrown into consciousness via a face full of very cold, very hard cement.

Opening your eyes and looking downwards, you come to the conclusion that you somehow had rolled over far enough to have gone straight off your tarp pile and onto the floor, pulling most of the cloth you’ve got over you with. You roll back over to see Spinel still asleep, an arm stretched out towards you as you were probably lying under it until recently. (She likes to pretend she’s not a cuddler, but nearly every time you’ve woken up since you’ve been here she’s either got some limb wrapped around you, or her face is pressed into your shoulder.) You feel a little bad that you had pulled the tarp off of her, leaving her out in the open air. You grab the edge of the cloth, pulling it up and over the gem, bringing it right up to her chest before dropping it.

Laying your head back down, you take a long breath while re-settling yourself. You watch her chest slowly rise and fall with her breathing, eyes fixated on her gem. The room around you is completely quiet, only the sounds of her breathing beside you are audible.

What the  _ fuck _ was that dream about? You barely have dreams anymore, let alone ones that are so.. realistic with their message. Normally it’s weird shit that doesn’t make any sense, not something like this. Whatever. Your brain is just tired and stressed from this.. situation you are in. You’re not going to put too much thought into figuring out what that meant. Closing your eyes, you drift back off to sleep to the sounds of the gem next to you softly breathing.

-

Even though it feels like you’ve only been asleep ten minutes, you wake up to Spinel shaking your shoulder and you roll over to face her. You feel like shit.

“Mornin’.” She says, her face pressed into the tarp pile. Her face has lines pressed into it where she slept too hard on an uneven surface, and she’s got a little bit of dried drool on the corner of her lip - but she looks like she got decent rest. “Figured I’d wake ya’ since it’s later than you usually sleep, and we planned on checking out the kindergarten today.” 

You stare at her for a moment, mind working at about the pace of the flow of molasses. She’s got loose strands of hair all over the place (some even sticking to her mouth), face looking weirdly refreshed from sleep - and you find this to be strangely endearing. This is the most human you have ever seen her.

“Could’ve been a little nicer about it.” You reply groggily, coughing into your hand to clear your throat.

“ _ How was that- _ are ya’ royalty? How would you want me to wake you up? The gentle fanning of leaves!?” She sits up, pushing the tarp off of herself.

“Yeah, that would be lovely actually.” You sit up as well, clutching your head. You feel like today is definitely gonna be a day alright. “And while you’re at it, feed me some grapes.”

“You’re ridiculous.” She scoffs in reply, but you can hear the smile in her voice.

You grunt out a non-committal response, stretching your arms over your head and getting up from your current position. It doesn't take you long to eat, and you only drag your feet a little bit in actually leaving the Spire.

You know the kindergarten is somewhere nearby, but you had Spinel look up it's coordinates just in case you were slightly off the mark. The two of you make small talk on your way there, only taking about half an hour to reach your destination. It isn't a long or difficult walk. 

Soon as you get close to the kindergarten, you can see rocky ravine for miles. With the sun high overhead and it's rays beating down on your body, you can feel yourself break out into a sweat much to your irritation. It had rained last night so not all of the water has evaporated in this heat yet, and it just feels absolutely awful and swampy. You'd much rather be chilling in the proximity of that small waterfall right now, truthfully.

The trees get a little sparser the closer you get to the ravine, and it seems so very bright where you’re heading. Approaching your destination, you finally get a decent look around the area, Spinel stopping by your side.

The sun beams down on you two, and you have to shield your eyes to get a proper look around. Many layers of this planet's crust is showing in vibrant shades of orange, large rock walls reaching at least a hundred feet high, and you see a few holes where some gems probably emerged from. There’s.. there’s something wrong here, and you can’t put your finger on it. 

“Um. Where are most of the Injectors?” Spinel speaks up before you can get any words out. Ah. That’s it. You see two or three empty Injectors along the wall of rock, but that’s it.

“Good question. I have no idea.” You reply, and she turns her face to give you a puzzled look. 

“I don’t understand. Even if gems abandon a planet, it’s not like they  _ take _ any of this stuff with. They just write it all off as a loss and move on.” Her eyes flicker between yours, as if she’ll find the answer there somehow.

“They obviously can’t just disappear, either. What the hell?” You say in agreement, the gentle breeze of hot, humid air wrapping itself around you like a wet blanket.

The both of you wander further into the area, intent on finding out any kind of clue at all. There are quite a few areas here that are just giant mud pits, as there’s no trees to soak up any of the rainfall. The ground practically squelches under your feet, and you hate it. You hate this entire stupid planet. At least Spinel doesn’t piss you off anymore. You find yourself angry that you had that thought in the first place, and then even angrier when you realize you’re angry about  _ that _ . Whatever, you’re not here to argue with yourself.

You notice a couple of the broken injectors that are piled up off to the side near some large boulders, and point them out to Spinel.

"Those are similar to those pictures we saw." You say, walking closer to observe the damaged parts. There's five or six of them here, and they're pretty fucked up. The drill part of the injectors are completely ripped off, and they all have a hole smashed into the sides of the glass - where the liquid was drained.

"Why would they do this?" You hear Spinel say beside you.

"You seriously think the gems did this?" You turn to her to reply.

"Yeah, well, nothing else makes any sense." She reaches out, and touches some of the glass with her hand. You wanna smack her hand away for some reason.

"It could've been something else? We don't know."

"But what could kill that many gems?" She puts her finger to her lip, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"We don't know that they died, either, Spinel. That's kind of morbid." She glances at you, giving you a look.

"None of them returned in those logs. That's a lot of gems. Something strange had to have happened here." She looks back at the injectors thoughtfully for a moment, before backing away a couple steps. "I'm gonna keep looking around."

"Okay, I'm gonna look at these a little more." You reply with a nod, and she meanders off to where you can't see her. You lean down to get a closer view.

The glass is broken in a specific way on each of these injectors, as if none of it was controlled. It's obvious to you that they weren't smashed or drained on purpose, and you can see the tearing on the internal parts of this machine aren't cut clean. It was if something bit into these injectors and just stomped on them afterwards.

You notice quite a few scratch marks on the sides, but it could've been from anything, even from when they were being dragged on the ground. There's a couple areas where the gouging is deeper, but nothing else that really stands out.

You stand back up, and your back cracks from your earlier position. It still doesn't make much sense. So many injectors are still missing. You stand there in the heat, quietly thinking about what could've gone on, when you hear Spinel call for you a hundred or so feet away. You turn to the direction she called from, seeing nothing. Might as well see what she needs. You walk towards where her voice came from, and when you get past some more large rock obscuring your view, you see exactly why Spinel called out to you.

“Can ya’ believe the size of this one?” She says, turning her face towards you with a peaked eyebrow.

She’s standing in front of another tunnel. It’s obvious that it’s a tunnel now, as you can see into it about twenty feet before it gets too dark. The outer edges of this one are much, much wider, and there are large gouges inside along the wall of rock and mud. There’s a couple more injectors in this area as well, but less than you can count on your hand. Off to the opposite side of this seems to be a huge drop off a cliff.

“I kinda wanna go in.” She squints her eyes into the darkness, putting her hand up to her chin.

“Yeah that’s not gonna happen. We don’t have a light source, and if it actually is something that killed all those gems, I’m not gonna walk into like, a literal hell hole.”

“It’s the one thing we haven’t checked out yet. We don’t have any other leads.”   
  
“You know our goal is to get off this planet, not investigate all its mysteries and die in the process, right?” You reply sarcastically.

“We’re going in there eventually.” She says with such stubbornness that you roll your eyes.

“Talk to me about that in another week because honestly? I’m not going in there unless I have a way of finding myself out if you die in there, or I somehow get lost.”

“Y/N! Ya’ kinda being a bit ridiculous about this!” She gives you a look of exasperation, and sighs, dropping her arms to her sides.

“It’s  _ not  _ ridiculous! You have no idea what it’s like to be trapped somewhere in the dark!” You spit out, aggravatedly. 

_ “What.” _ She furrows her eyebrows, teeth showing in a snarl of frustration. Oh, right. Shit.

“Spinel.” You pinch the bridge of your nose, feeling a headache forming in the back of your skull. “You know I meant it like-”

“ _ I _ don’t know what it’s like??  ** _ME._ ** ” She forces out with such incredulousness in her voice that it echoes out all around you, travelling out through the ravine far enough until it fades out. The silence that befalls afterwards is nearly deafening.

You open your mouth to apologize, but you’re having difficulties with forming the right words. She watches you for a second, pupils flickering between your eyes.

“I’m s-” You start with, but immediately feel tremors underneath your feet. Spinel’s face reacts accordingly.

“A quake?” She says, her eyes widening a little. 

"Yeah, this feels like the one from before." You look around, not exactly expecting to see anything out of the norm other than some puddles of water rippling. The rumbling of the planet only lasts for a couple of seconds, and silence falls around you again. 

You feel a hand wrapping around your upper arm and before you can react, Spinel yanks you several feet off to the side as something large comes crashing down in front of you, splashing you with a wall of mud and stale rain water. 

“Oh what the fuck!?” You exclaim as you wipe mud off of your face. It’s an injector that fell off from high up on the wall. 

“That was a close one. Glad it didn’t squash ya’.” Spinel says, wide-eyed, and drops her hand from your arm. Whatever kind of mood that was just happening between you two is long gone. “The tremors must have loosened it enough for it to finally fall down.”

“Bullshit is what it was, I’m entirely covered from head to toe in mud.” You spit out some dirt that managed to get into your mouth. The soil here tastes acidic. Spinel got hit as well by the splash, but not nearly as much as you did. Of course. “I wanna leave. We’ve been here long enough, and I wanna wash all this out of the only clothes I have while the sun is still up.”

“But-”

“Spinel, we’re not going into the tunnel. Drop it.” You cut her off with, and sigh. 

“Argh, FINE! We’re discussing this some other time then.” She says frustratedly, crossing her arms. She turns to walk off in the direction you guys came from, and you follow her lead.

It takes you a bit to find a nearby body of water, but you do manage to find another small lake. This one is closer to the size of a pond with quite a few trees surrounding it, and you can see the Spire from here. With the sun high up in the sky beating down on you this entire time, the mud has completely dried on you, much to your displeasure. It’s pulling at your skin in all the worst ways.

For some reason Spinel hasn’t phased the dirt off of her clothes. Not that you really care, you just find it strange. She walks around the edges of the water, looking like she wants to just dive in. You grab the edges of your shirt, peeling it over your head slowly. Caked bits of mud fly about, and you throw your shirt directly into the water with a large splash. You struggle to take off your jeans, and you momentarily lose your balance enough on one leg to fall directly on your ass. Spinel snickers at you a couple meters away, and you turn your head to glare at her.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to peel these off, asshole? You don’t. You haven’t even phased the mud off yourself.” You say to her, gesturing at her with your hand. You finish taking off your pants on the ground, also tossing those in the water. 

“It doesn’t really bother me.” She replies with a shrug, and jumps into the water with a splash. 

You get back up, opting to keep your underwear and bra on. It's whatever. You're going to be in the water anyway. You watch Spinel lazily float on the surface of the water as you walk in, careful not to slip on the rocks at the bottom. You reach out and grab your clothes that are now soaked and about to sink into the water completely, and keep them close to yourself as you submerge your head underneath the surface of the water.

When you come back up for air and wipe your face off, you hear Spinel mumble a "Hey." off to your side, and you turn to face her. 

"Hm?" You manage to grunt out. 

"I think we need to have a discussion about somethin' important."

"And that is..?" You run your fingers through your hair, still feeling mud. Gross.

"What are we gonna do if no one ever finds us?" You see her pupils gravitate over to your face as she regards you.

Honestly.

You had been blocking that likely possibility in your thoughts for a while now to keep up the facade of your waning sanity. Also you know. To try to keep it positive.

"We keep trying to find a solution to leave." You reply, and submerge half your head in the water to scrub more dirt out.

"There's.. there's really nothing we can do though. I think the tech is too old to get communications back up. Believe me. I tried."

"Yeah but in the Spire there's dozens upon dozens of crates filled with parts to something. I saw it when I was up there exploring." You squeeze out the rest of your hair, feeling that it's finally dirt free. You move on to scrubbing down the rest of your body.

"Y/N.. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most of the stuff that they'd bring supplies for would just be for the kindergarten."

"But I saw-"

"It'd be useless to us." She says, cutting you off. You look over to her, a bit surprised that she's being so direct and snippy about this. She's looking purposefully towards the sky, edges of her face being framed by the water she's floating in.

"Why are you saying this now?"

"Because we've been here a while, as you've noticed. With no sign of like, anyone attempting to contact us. We need to face reality."

"Sounds like you already have given up. Well, I haven't." You reply to her with a huff, and grab your clothes to wash the dirt out of them.

"How can you still have hope? It's been weeks, Y/N." She turns her head to face you, fixing you with a look.

"I believe Steven wouldn't just give up on me like that, for starters. I'm just hoping he remembered about our keychain." 

"Uh, what keychain?" Her eyebrows raise in confusion.

"Err, remember that convo about that night I snuck away? I might've forgotten to mention that I placed a small tracker I have as a matching keychain with Steven by that tree on the hill.." You say as you swish your pants through the water, squeezing the mud and dirt out of the fabric. 

"You had a tracker and you didn't tell me!?" She almost manages to sound like she's upset, and she stops her floating to stand up in the water and stare at you.

"It slipped my mind the last week or so. And yeah, I didn't tell you before because I was kinda under the impression that you'd probably destroy that too, like you did the warp pad." 

"I.. yeah." She replies, looking a little ashamed of herself. For some reason your chest feels a little constricted when she looks at you, and you almost want to reach out to her. You don't know why, but suppress the urge regardless. "I don't blame ya' honestly. I.. probably would have, too. Knowing myself."

"And you won't destroy it now?" You reply, and she fixes you with a look.

"Shouldn't you know by now if I was going to?" She huffs almost disappointedly at you. "Anyway, we should probably go back for it considering we're a couple miles away from it now, and if your friends did come, they'd be confused."

"Yeah, I figured." You shrug, and move onto washing your shirt. "I'm just kinda dreading that walk again. It's always so hot here that I feel disgusting being out and walking in this swampy air."

"You're tellin' me. I was kinda used to a more moderate temperature back in the garden. Several thousand years in the same climate to.. this? It's absolute torture, really." She submerges herself in water up to her chin, idly swimming while you wash up.

"Earth has a wide range of weather patterns so I've dealt with this kinda shit before, but I never lived in any kind of tropical region. I'm not great at dealing with the humidity. It feels like I'm walking through thick, wet air." You're having difficulty scrubbing all of the dirt out of the fabric, as for some reason it wants to cling to it.

"This planet sucks." She says with such gumption that you manage to snicker. She looks at you like she's a little surprised, but also pleased at herself.

"Listen, you picked it. Only I'm allowed to complain about it." You reply, using more force than necessary to scrub your shirt. 

She opens her mouth to retort, closes it, and gets a suspiciously mischievous glint in her eye.

"What-" Is all you manage to get out of your mouth before Spinel whips her arms out at rapid pace, splashing you with a face full of water.

You stand there, dripping and staring at her. It's deadly quiet as she's waiting for you to speak. She's watching your face intently as you casually lift up the hand you've got the shirt you're washing in, it drenched in lake water.

"You think you're funny huh!?" You say as you throw the soaked shirt at her, and it unexpectedly hits her in the face with a wet  _ smack _ . It falls back into the water comically, and her face is the funniest fucking thing you've seen in a long time. 

"How dare you!" She cries, splashing you again, and you cover your face as you laugh.

"I wasn't going for your face, I'm sorry!" You say in between laughs. Her face twists into shock, and then mirth, as she splashes you for a third time. 

"Well then, that's  _ payback _ ." She chuckles smugly, and now you want to wipe that smirk off her face. You drop your hand into the water and quickly splash her right in the middle of her face, drenching her. 

" _ Y/N _ !" Spinel gasps, mock betrayal in her voice. She drops both of her hands into the lake.

"Don't." You plead with a shake of your head. 

" _ Don't what _ ?" She says coyly, and brings up both her hands with a mountain of water in tow, and this starts an all out war.

She hits you square in the face with another wall of water, and you laugh as you sink further into the water, bringing up both your arms to throw more water at her from a lower angle. The two of you struggle to breathe through your bouts of laughter as you keep splashing lake water at each other. This really only lasts for about thirty seconds, but the both of you are nearly out of breath and laughing so hard that you're having a hard time standing up.

When your giggles subside enough to give you room to breathe, you cough a couple times to clear your throat, face hurting from the laughter. It's been a while since you've done that. You glance over to Spinel, who's standing still in the water. She's got her gaze set on you, almost like she's lost in thought. When she realizes that you're looking back at her she also clears her throat and shakes her head, sending bits of water flying off her.

"Anyway." She says. "I definitely feel like things could be worse, all things considered."

"Really?" You reply, grabbing your water-logged clothes from the surface. "What makes you say that?"

"I've been on planets with way worse conditions. Crazy lightning storms that will electrify you if you're above ground, ice climates that are so cold humans definitely wouldn't survive for more than 5 minutes outside, planets that are on fire 95% of the time. The list goes on." She shrugs, looking at the water thoughtfully.

"Thanks for not bringing me somewhere I'd be near instantly eviscerated, I guess." You say snidely, and figure it's a good time to dry out your clothes.

You walk back out of the lake at your leisure, holding your sopping wet shirt and jeans. Once you squeeze out as much of the excess water as you can, you lay them out on a rock that's in clear view of the sun so that they can dry. It shouldn't take too long honestly, with this current heat.

You're not facing Spinel as you're doing this, back turned to her. It's pretty quiet, the sounds of wind rustling the trees and insects around you are the only things you can hear. It's peaceful.

"Were ya' ever gonna tell me what happened?" You hear Spinel say from behind you. You turn to face her, and she's floating idly again, but her eyes are trained on you.

"What?" You ask confusedly.

"The scar on your back." She replies.

"Oh." You're a bit surprised. You forget it exists because you can't see it. "Umm.."

"You don't have to tell me if ya' don't want to." She says quickly. Huh. You weren't expecting her to be kind of.. tactful about it.

"It's not that, it's just.." You sigh, and clear your throat before continuing. "It's kind of a long story."

"You could cut out most of the details if ya' don't wanna go into them."

"Yeah. Okay." You feel your body get too warm from standing in the direct sunlight, so you walk back into the water to chill while you wait for your clothes to dry. "Remember how I told you that once I got decent enough from training with Pearl, they let me go on missions with them?"

"Yeah?" She replies, eyes looking up into the sky, trees rustling above you gently.

"One time they let me and Steven go on a small mission alone after I convinced the crystal gems that we'd be fine. It was supposed to be easy."

"How so?"

"It was a simple retrieval mission. We were supposed to get a relic in this temple. In and out, right?" You get up to your shoulders in water, letting the cool water surround you. "Well, turns out it wasn't. We got attacked by these golem monsters because I made a shitty call. They told us to not take any shortcuts and to just take a direct path through, but half the temple had already collapsed years prior to regular wear and decay."

"Why didn't ya' just turn around?" She turns her face towards you, and momentarily you're blinded by her gem sparkling in the sunlight.

"Because I was stupid, and stubborn. It took a lot of pleading to let them let us go on our own. I thought it'd be fine."

"So the scar is from then?" She regards you with a raised eyebrow.

"I jumped out foolishly in an attempt to protect Steven. I mean, protecting him wasn't the foolish part. It was that I ran directly at the golem, and it smacked me aside like a fucking fly. My back slammed into jagged rock, and that's why it looks like this. If it wasn't for Steven's healing powers, I'm not sure I'd be able to walk properly even now."

"How come you seemed so.. sensitive about it when I asked you about it back then?" She inquires thoughtfully.

"Because it brings up everything that happened after. The gems were rightfully pissed. For a while there, they didn't trust me with  _ anything _ . Told me I couldn't even follow simple instructions to keep a child safe."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. It took.. years after that, to regain their trust. It sucked, not gonna lie. I'll do nearly anything to never have Garnet give me the cold shoulder for a week like that, ever again."

"How did Steven feel about it?" 

"He was on my side the entire time, actually. He also thought we could handle it."

"They didn't put any blame on him?"

"He was a kid. I was the adult in charge. They couldn't, really. And even looking back on it now, I wouldn't want them to. It really was my responsibility. I just.. felt kinda useless about it all, you know?"

"I feel like ya' blame yourself a lot for this." She gives you a side eye, her hair floating around her face in the water.

"Maybe. I just feel stupid for reacting that way, when I could've been killed. And for what? Couldn't even protect one kid."

"You're too harsh on yourself. Everyone makes mistakes."

"You're probably right, I hate to admit."

"You think I'm right?" She says as her face lights up in a grin.

"Don't make me regret saying that." You scoff, unable to stop the smile breaking out on your face. "But yeah. I still think about it often, even though it's been years."

"Yeah, I can sorta relate to that." She sighs wistfully, and you watch her float on the surface of the water. 

You let your mind drift a bit as the two of you sit in comfortable silence, rays of sunlight pouring through the jungle trees. It's a hot, lazy afternoon, and you could probably fall asleep here if you closed your eyes long enough. After a while, you look over to your clothes on the rock you placed them on, and they look to be dry. Dry enough to wear again, you guess.

"We should probably head back soon." You mumble to her, and she grunts in response a couple seconds later.

You get out of the water begrudgingly, wiping yourself off as best as you can. You make quick work of putting your shirt back on, but you have obvious difficulties with your jeans. Spinel walks over to you as you're getting your other leg in, and you pretend this isn't as difficult as it looks.

"Is putting clothes on that hard for you?" She asks, and you can hear the mockery in her voice.

"Shut up. It's not like  _ you've _ ever had to put clothes on before." You sneer back at her, and finally button the top of your pants. Phew.

"It can't be that hard. You looked like you were strangling your leg." She grins, placing her hands on her hips smugly.

"Keep that up and I'll strangle  _ you, _ Spinel." You reply, deadpan. Obviously you don't mean it.

"I'd like to see ya' try." She snickers, and you wish you had your wet shirt in hand again, just to smack her with it.

"You'll eat those words one of these days, I swear." You stick your tongue out at her and spin around to head back to the Spire. You hear her sputter from behind you, and her footsteps as she runs to catch up to you.

"You're kind of prickly, anyone ever tell ya' that?" She says from beside you, keeping up with your leisurely pace. You don't feel like breaking out into a sweat again.

"Nope. Steven says I'm pleasant." You retort. She snorts at that, bringing a fist to her mouth to stop herself from laughing. "Anyone ever tell you that you're a bit irritating?"

"Nope! Eh. Wait, maybe Pink did, once." She puts a finger to her lip, biting it in thought. "She honestly couldn't complain though, the other diamonds thought  _ she _ was such a handful that they gave her me. For entertainment."

"Man, fuck Pink Diamond. All she did was cause Steven problems that he never deserved. She caused problems for literally  _ everybody. _ " You say disdainfully, careful to watch your step on some large roots sticking out of the ground. Spinel looks like she's a bit surprised at your words, but also pleased at them. It does weird things to your chest cavity. 

"You can say that again." She says, smiling a little bit. There's some silence for a minute or two as you both are walking, before she decides to say something again. "So.. not to change the topic or anything, but I never really did ask you about your home life? I know you were with the gems, but what about your family? I know humans have biological blood bonds."

"My family  _ is _ the crystal gems, Spinel." You say to her, and she looks at you in confusion. "I mean, I have parents, sure. I wouldn't call what they did as raising me, though. They fucking suck and I don't care about them. My mother would sell my possessions for drug money and was never home, and my dad's an alcoholic who only cares about his work. They never gave two shits about me as far as I can remember, and they only ever had me as a mistake. They never liked each other. So, when the gems offered me a room to stay, I jumped on that prospect immediately. I've never looked back. I haven't talked to either of my parents in over six years."

"Ouch. Okay, I'm a bit sorry I asked." She replies sheepishly.

"Eh, don't be. It doesn't bother me anymore." You say with a shrug. She looks at you almost like she's concerned, and then dismisses it.

"I'm glad about that, at least." She kind of gives you a wry half-smile, and you continue staring ahead of you. You're almost back to the Spire by now.

You think it's kind of cute that she asks about you. It makes you think.. hm. You clear your throat.

"So.. Spinel." 

"Hm?" She replies, meeting your gaze.

"Is it like, in your nature?" You ask her.

"My what?" She raises her eyebrow in response.

"You know.. like a Pearl." God, the look she's giving you right now is so fucking funny that you have to force yourself to not laugh. "They always end up being people pleasers. It's terribly natural for them." 

"What the fuck are ya' talking about?" She levels you with a look, stopping in her tracks.

"Trying to be friends with people! You just keep.. asking me stuff to know me better." You reply, stopping as well and turning to face her.

"What.." She trails off, stopping to stare at you. "I'm.. I'm not.." You watch her cheeks tinge a darker pink.

"Are you blushing!?" You blurt out in surprise, and she glares at you. It's not effective whatsoever.

"No!" She hisses through her teeth, and pushes past you.

"You're not very convincing!" You shout at her, and jog to catch up to her.

" _ Shut up _ !!!" She turns to see you trailing right behind her, and speeds up tremendously to outpace you. 

"Wait! Come back!" You laugh out at her. "I bet you just can't help it!"

"We're done talking about this!!" She shouts from twenty feet in front of you.

"NOT IF I CAN HELP IT!" You shout in response, and run to follow several feet behind her all the way to the Spire, laughing the entire way back.

You haven't smiled this much in weeks.


	11. Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh y/n you idiot

You wake up in the middle of the night, and for some reason, you cannot fall back asleep no matter how much you toss and turn. You lay there for probably more than an hour, restless, before you give up and decide it’s probably best if you get up and walk around to try to wear your brain out manually.

You carefully peel Spinel’s limbs off of you - your body starts to miss the warmth immediately. She stirs a bit, and you nearly wake her up, but you’re able to successfully slip away without waking her. You don’t want to leave the Spire, as you’re not feeling up to being outside, so you figure you’ll wander around on the floors above you.

Grabbing one of the loose drop cloths on the pile and wrapping it around your shoulders, you make your way up the set of stairs in front of you. You tend to zone out while walking as you let your mind wander, and before you know it you’re at the top floor where you can go no further. You had no intention of walking all the way up here, honestly, but now that you’re here you’d figure you’d chill here for a while. Until you feel sleepy enough, you guess.

Pulling the cloth around your shoulders a little tighter, you walk over to the edge of the decayed floor, looking out at the expanse of the jungle far beyond you. It’s pretty foggy out tonight, you can barely see the tips of the trees through the thick mist. It’s cold, but not as unbearable as some of the other nights have been lately, though. You sit down, pulling your feet up and under you to try to keep your legs warm, pulling the cloth over your lap as well. You almost feel snug.

You’re really only sitting up there for about ten minutes or so when you hear Spinel walk up the stairs behind you, and you turn to look to look at her.

“I woke up and I was cold and alone.” She says, disgruntled. “I figured you wouldn’t go outside so I came up here.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” You reply, and face the opening in the wall again. You hear Spinel shuffling to walk towards you, and you scoot over to give her enough room.

“No kidding, your tossing and turning woke me up several times.” She leans down to sit next to you, wrapping her arms around her sides.

“I’m sorry. I ended up getting up because I didn’t want to also wake you, but I guess it didn’t matter.” You rub the back of your head sheepishly.

“Eh, It’s okay. I woulda woke up regardless.” She replies with a shrug, lifting a knee up to rest her chin upon it. 

“Why, can’t sleep without me by your side?” You tease her a little.

“Maybe.” She says, sounding honest. “I think I might just be a light sleeper, though.”

“Mm, not really.” You pull the cloth tighter around your shoulders, a shiver creeping up your spine. “I’ve made quite a bit of noise before and you’ll still be passed out next to me, with like a little bit of drool on your face.”

“What! Do I have drool on me now?” She asks, feeling the side of her face self-consciously.

“No.” You giggle a little, rolling your eyes at her. “It’s only been once or twice. Chill.”

“Whatever.” She scoffs at you, shivering a little. “You talk in your sleep.”

“I do not.”

“You do.” She side eyes you, the moonlight illuminating her face. “It’s mostly gibberish, but sometimes.. like the other night, you said “potato”? Who’s potato?”

“Food.” You halfheartedly smack the side of your face dramatically. “Of course I’d subconsciously talk about food.”

“What..” She snorts, enough of a grin on her face to see her teeth. “That’s kind of..”

“Shut up. I miss fries. I miss mashed potatoes, I miss chips.. I  _ really _ miss potatoes. What I wouldn’t give to eat that right now.” You groan.

“Humans are weird.” She looks at you amusedly.

“Listen, you wouldn’t understand. They’re delicious.” You whine, and kick your feet out from under you. Your legs were getting numb anyway.

“Hm.” She grunts, and you watch her shiver violently next to you. You.. feel a little bad that you’re hogging your makeshift blanket. 

You lift up the arm closest to her, and gesture for her to take the other side of the cloth. She scoots a little closer to you, close enough for her leg to be pressed against yours, right up to your hip. She wraps the cloth around the other side of her, bringing it around to the front so now the entire thing is covering you two. You feel warmer already.

The two of you sit in silence for a little bit, watching the fog move with the wind in the distance. You don’t know why you’re almost uncomfortably aware of her presence now, when you’re so used to sleeping next to her literally every night. 

"Y/N." She speaks up from beside you, and you nearly jump where you're sitting. 

"Yeah?" You reply. Why are you feeling nervous?

"I've been.. thinking for a while." She clears her throat awkwardly, and takes a breath before continuing. "What are you going to do if we get off this planet?" She turns to face you, eyes wavering between yours. 

You open your mouth to answer the obvious, and then shut it. Of course you're going back to Earth. But.. you find yourself wondering about what's going to happen to Spinel. You don’t know why, but the thought of never seeing Spinel again makes your chest hurt.

"..I'm going back to living my life on Earth." You reply, eventually. "Hopefully put all this past me. Maybe.. pick up a new hobby. Why? What are you gonna do?"

"I.." She breaks off, looking back out at the jungle and avoiding your eyes. "I don't know, actually. I don't have anywhere to go." 

"You don't have anyone you want to see? Not even on Homeworld?" You ask.

She continues to stare out into the distance for a long moment before answering. You watch her for a while, gaze lingering on the sharp lines on her cheeks, her twintails swaying slightly in the wind. The moons make the white of her eyes more vibrant, and you find yourself drawn to them. She still will not meet your eyes.

"I don't.. have anyone." She says quietly, and something inside you breaks a little at the sadness in her tone.

"You have me." You hear yourself saying, before realizing it even came out of your mouth. You feel her freeze up on the spot. 

Slowly, she turns her head to come face to face with you, expression completely vulnerable. When her eyes finally find it's way to yours, you realize that there's tears in them. 

You.. you don't know what to do. 

She pulls you into a hug before your brain can process anything, wrapping both of her arms around you under the drop cloth. Her chin rests on your shoulder near the crook of your neck.

"You're not just saying that, right?" She mumbles quietly, feeling her warm breath against your neck and trying not to shudder. You feel your own heartbeats thumping inside your chest as you wrap your arms around her torso, bringing them around her back to hug her tightly. You can feel her gem pressed against your breast, the hard angles digging into you. 

It's warm, like her.

"Of course I mean it. We're friends, yeah?" You reply, earnestly.

She doesn't move for a solid several seconds, and you're worried that you said something to have upset her. Just as you're about to backtrack, she turns to face you again, and this time there's some kind of tenderness in her eyes as her shoulders visibly sag in relief. 

"You called us friends, I can't believe it." She says, the corner of her mouth upturned in a slight smile that reaches her eyes, and for the first time since meeting her, she looks genuinely happy.

And this somehow does things to your heart that it has  _ no _ business doing. You look away quickly, tearing your gaze from hers, and pack those feelings so far down inside you that hopefully you'll forget they are there.

"I.. yeah. I did." You finish, lamely. You don't know how to be genuine without being awkward.

"I'm keeping this moment in my memory forever." She says, face breaking out into a slow grin.

"Ugh, shut uppp." You say, and she chokes out a snort. "Anyway, I told you about this. We made a Little Homeworld on Earth. You could come visit it whenever you want, maybe to meet some new gems, and learn some new skills?"

"I don't know." She replies a bit hesitant. "I don't feel like I'd fit in." 

"I think you'd be fine. Something tells me you'd fit right in with some of the Lapis's we have."

"Why do I feel like you're insulting me somehow?" She says, squinting at you.

"Don't worry about it." You shrug, grinning at her.

"Whenever you say something in that tone, I'm immediately suspicious." 

"Then you know me better than most people." You chuckle.

Her face is too close to yours. You're overly warm now, and you think your heartbeats are so loud that she can probably hear them. You hope she can't. You realize that the both of you are still hugging, and pull away before your stupid touch-starved brain does something incredibly stupid tonight. She reluctantly pulls her arms away from you, clasping her hands in her lap after pulling the tarp close.

You try to ignore the disappointed look on her face when you pull away, and mentally scream at yourself to get your shit together. You're a disaster waiting to happen. 

"I'm not too sure about your friends, though. I have a feeling they won't be happy about that." She says, tone slightly worried.

"Once they hear about what Pink did to you, and I tell them that you regret attacking Steven, I don't think they'll care too much." You reply, turning to face her slightly, pulling the cloth closer to yourself. She's still got her side pressed to yours, but you're cold. 

"I'm a little more concerned with the fact that I took  _ you. _ And for this long. They'll think it's deliberate.."

"Spinel." Her eyes are drawn to yours. "Trust me on this. I know them. Don't worry about it."

"If you say so." She shrugs, not seeming to be convinced. "Um.. so what kinda stuff would Little Homeworld teach? Gem stuff?"

"Yeah. They also have a lot of human classes too, if you're curious." You notice that she seems to perk up at that.

"Human classes? What for?" She raises her eyebrows in confusion, and scoots a little closer to you, drawing the cloth tighter around you two. You feel her shiver a little. 

"They have classes ranging from understanding regular human norms to things like art and cooking. Depends on if you can't grasp the concept of crossing the street safely or not, honestly." You feel a little warmer, and draw your legs back underneath the cover of warmth. 

"Cooking, huh." She puts a finger to her mouth in complentation. 

"I feel like I should suggest art."

"Why?"

"Because I have a feeling that cooking with you will be a disaster." You retort.

"Hey!" She scoffs, mock betrayal in her voice, yet she's got a smile on her face. "How would  _ you _ know! You've never seen me cook!"

"And I've never seen you eat. If you don't know what tastes good, how do you think that'll go?" 

"Psh, I can try sometime.." She trails off, pouting.

"Yeah, well, don't start with the fruit here." You giggle. "Pretty sure you can't really do anything with it anyway. Regardless, I'm sure anything you end up trying you'll be good at."

"You think so?" She looks to you, like she actually cares about what you have to say.

"Of course. You're pretty adaptable as is, I mean, if the stuff we've been through has anything to say.." You feel kind of self conscious all of a sudden, as her gaze lingers on you thoughtfully.

"You know, you can be kind of nice sometimes, Y/N." She says softly, giving you a knowing smile.

"Ugh shut up, and don't tell anyone." Is all you can reply with, and she chokes out a laugh at that.

"There's no one here but us, you idiot! Who would I tell!?" She chuckles gleefully, and the two of you continue to talk for a while about Earth and Little Homeworld, until you get cold and sleepy enough to want to head back down to the base level. 

"Wanna try going back to sleep?" You ask her eventually, when the conversation lulls enough for you to feel your eyes droop. 

"Might as well. Ya' kinda look like you need it, anyway." She reluctantly pulls the cloth away from around her shoulders.

"Wow, you saying I look tired?" You stand up and glare at her half-heartedly, holding out a hand in a silent offer. She looks at your face, and then her eyes drop down to your hand, staring at it for a moment.

"It shows on your face." She takes your hand, grasping it with hers as she lifts herself off the ground. She holds it for a second or two longer than necessary, before dropping it from her grasp entirely.

"Ugh." You scoff, heading for the stairs. "Of course it does."

You both walk back down together, but this time you remember to ask her about something this time when you're passing it. When you get down another few floors and into the room with the crates full of cloth, you show her.

She peers into one of the open crates, digging through it with her gloved hand. She grabs one of the bundles of ivory cloth, lifting it up to squint at.

"What was all this used for?" You ask. "Because with these other supplies, it makes it seem like materials for a first aid kit, and that makes absolutely no sense coming from gems."

"Um." She runs the fabric in-between her fingers, and then looks at the blades and needles that are also in here. "I hate to break it to ya', but I'm pretty sure these are all just.. decorative supplies." She drops the cloth back into the crate.

"Was kinda hoping for a better answer." You reply, feeling put-out.

"We could use the cloth to make some kind of torch for you, and then we could go into the tunnels." She suggests, locking eyes with you.

"Oh, that's.." You trail off, looking back at her in pleasant surprise. "That's actually smart, Spinel. That's a great idea." 

"Thanks." She replies, and turns her head slightly so she thinks you can't see the half smile she's got on her face. 

_ She's cute. _

You find the thought jarring. She doesn't see it when you feel your own face change a bit in surprise at yourself, and you're thankful for that as you quickly mask it. What the fuck is wrong with you tonight.

"I think the cloth would burn out too quickly by itself though." You say, picking up some of it and feeling the weight. "We should see if there's some kind of oil we can use that would work for this. Or find tree sap. I can make something with that, now that I think about it."

"I think I know of a few areas nearby with some."

"Cool, we can gather some tomorrow then." You place the fabric back into the crate, knowing you'll be back for some of it later. You grab one of the smaller blades though, and stick that into your pocket. It'll come in handy, you think. "Can I show you something else though? Just in case it's something we can actually use."

"Sure, what is it?" She asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Down a few more floors, actually. More crates of stuff." You gesture for her to follow you, and she does. 

A few minutes later and you're down on one of the lower floors, and you show her the numerous crates with cylinder metal pieces. She takes one out, spinning it around in her hands, examining it closely.

"I'm pretty sure these are replacement pieces for some of the injectors." 

"So they're useless to us." You state, shoulders sagging.

"I'm afraid so. I mean.. honestly, it'd be rare for them to have brought anything else other than what they needed."

"Yeah, it just sucks."

"What exactly were ya' hopin' for, Y/N?"

"I don't know.." You mumble. "Parts to a ship?"

"Pfft." She snickers. "That's funny. You think they cared about slow ships when they had warp pads? Other than bringing large amounts of supplies here."

"Ugh, yeah I know, I was just hopeful." You groan. "Whatever, let's just get back downstairs already. I'm tired."

"Yes, ya' majesty." 

You smack her, and she chuckles.

When you get back down to the bottom, you practically flop down on the pile of tarps. You're tired as fuck at this point. You smooth out and rearrange the pile you're on while Spinel gets in beside you, about a foot or two away. When you finally settle, you notice that she doesn't get any closer to you - keeping herself at that distance.

"How come you're still like, way over there? You're usually right up in my personal space." You turn to face her.

"I maybe just realized that I've been doing all that without asking if you were okay with it, so.." She trails off, a little nervously.

You stare at her. 

She's.. she's thinking about this  _ now? _ You almost laugh at the absurdity of it, since she's been doing this for weeks now without a second thought. And then.. you realize, this is an incredible amount of personal growth for her. She's thinking about  _ your _ feelings, and you feel stupid for almost laughing.

"Come here." You sigh, and she looks at you without moving. You roll your eyes, and open your arms. "I'm cold, Spinel."

"I knew ya' couldn't resist this." She breaks out into a cheeky grin, and scoots closer to you so she can flop on your outstretched arm.

"It would be so easy to strangle you right now." You mumble, moving the arm underneath her a little in mock movement, and she laughs.

"But ya' wouldn't." She replies in between giggles, and turns over to her side.

"Pfft, you don't know me." You flop your other arm over her so you're facing her back as you roll over, and you try and sap as much warmth as you can from her.

"I think I know you more than ya' think by now." She says, and you feel very warm. Absolutely cozy, in fact. You push some of her hair away as it's basically in your face, giving the back of her head one final glance as you close your eyes sleepily.

"Mm." Is all you manage to say to that before passing out, Spinel warm in your arms.


	12. Twelve

The next day or so goes by pretty quickly without incident. You guys have to wait until the weather is good before you can go and retrieve the tracker, but you figure it would be best to go back and grab that before you forget about it. It had rained for the last day and a half unfortunately, so the journey is going to be extra annoying. Should only take.. most of your day to do this.

You sigh out loud in aggravation at the thought of having to go back over near the ruins that was your first camp. It's going to be  _ such _ a long walk. You were going to go for it alone, originally, because you were the one who left it and you'd be fine on your own, but Spinel said she'd join you. You find yourself thankful for the company.

Which is interesting considering when you first came here, she wanted you to go nowhere alone and you absolutely  _ hated _ her presence.

It's weird how quickly things can change.

You grab the fruit you're gonna eat for the day and toss it into the makeshift bag you had made, tossing it over your shoulder. You pat down your pocket, feeling your knife in there. Good. You don't think anything else is necessary.

Spinel walks over to the Spire doors and opens them, peering at the conditions outside. It's muggy as fuck outside today, but you're gonna have to deal with it.

"Ugh. I don't wanna go out there." She sniffs the air outside, scrunching her face in displeasure. "I feel like I'm breathing in vapor, the air is so thick."

"You don't even  _ need _ to breathe technically, so I'm going to be the one suffering here. And we've got to just deal with it, we don't know if it's going to keep raining all week, and honestly Spinel? I don't want to walk miles in the rain." You adjust the bag over your shoulder so the hard angles of fruit aren't poking you in the side, and walk over to where she is by the door.

"Walking in the rain would be so much better than this." She sticks her arm outside the door, her arm drooping like a wet noodle dramatically. "This is miserable."

"No, miserable would be my legs  _ chafing _ because of wet pants. You can deal with this." You take a couple steps outside, and  _ jesus fuck  _ she's right. The air is thick and swampy as hell. It feels like you're moving in molasses.

"Ugh, let's just get this over with." Her face drops in a show of misery, and you can't help rolling your eyes at her antics.

You both meander slowly in the direction you know the ruins to be in, and it takes just five minutes for you to be pretty damn irritated with the humidity. You feel like you're just dragging your feet along at an agonizing pace. Many parts of the uneven ground are just sopping wet mud pits, and you nearly walk into several. 

Because of the humidity and moisture levels of the soil, it takes you two far longer to get over to the ruins than you had originally thought. By the time you can see the hill you placed your keychain on, thick clouds have formed overhead in this late afternoon heat, chasing the sun away completely. You didn't think it would rain today, and you curse to yourself.

They look like storm clouds, and you gulp in nervous anticipation. You hope it's just rain this time.

"Looks like a storm is coming." Spinel says next to you, squinting up at the sky. 

"Yeah, let's hope it goes by quickly. We should probably find shelter once we're done and wait for it to pass." You reply as you both breach through the thick of the jungle trees, and you can see the hill with the tree on it. 

"If we wait too long though, we might not make it back before it gets dark.." She trails off, and looks to you in concern.

"We'll be fine." You huff. "I think."

"I don't trust these clouds. We should try to be a little faster."

"Spinel if I walk any faster, I'll slide around in the mud. We're almost there." Your legs feel like lead. All your limbs hurt, actually. You feel like the combination of the humidity and the heavy gravity could be used as some sort of slow torture device.

The walk up the hill is rough. You slip and manage to scuff up your knee, and it takes everything in your willpower to not just yell out in frustration. When you finally get to the base of the tree, you head straight for the trunk to grab the tracker.

It's not in the spot you left it.

Your stomach drops, and you freeze for a moment in panic. Spinel catches on immediately.

"What's wrong?" She asks from beside you, as you're kneeling.

"Uh." You say. "I left it here. And it ain't here." You say with a voice you're trying to keep the panic from reaching. Your heart rate has skyrocketed in the meantime.

"What do you mean it isn't here?" She looks at you, clearly concerned. 

“I-I don't know, but I hid it so nothing would happen to it, and now it's not here." You say, panic creeping into your voice. You pull the grass apart at the trunk of the tree with your hands, desperately trying to see if it somehow had rolled away. You are checking all around the base at this point.

"Where could it have gone? It's not like there are people here to take it!" She says in exasperation.

"I don't know!" You turn your head to look to her, and a flash of light shoots up in the distance behind her.

Fucking. Of course. 

A second and a half later, the crackle of rolling thunder sounds out around you.

"We should probably find shelter, Y/N." Spinel says, and looks up at the horizon.

"No," You reply, and when you stand up, you see another rod of lightning flash, but closer. The thunder booms, and within a few more seconds you're being pelted with chunks of ice. You look around you at the ground frantically, hoping somehow it moved.

“Y/N.” She repeats, and wind starts to pick up, your hair whipping you in the face. You shield your eyes from the incoming hail and rain. 

“Hold on,” You say, eyes roaming everywhere.

Two more flashes erupt in the distance, thunder sounding near immediately. The rain and hail starts to come down harder, and the wind is howling in your ears now. You are nearly in tears at this point, this was not how today was supposed to go at all.

“What’s that over there?” She asks, nearly shouting through the gusts of wind. You turn to see what she’s pointing at, and you see something off to the side, peeking out of some grass.

Stepping over to it quickly and nearly tripping, you can see that it’s your keychain.

“Oh thank god.” You groan in relief, grabbing it off the ground and feeling your heartbeats pounding in your ears.

“Is that it!?” She leans over you, shielding her face with her hands from the rain pelting down on the two of you.

“Yeah.” Your shoulders sag in obvious relief.

“Okay, well, we need to go. This storm is insane and I can barely hear anything.” She says through gritted teeth, squinting at the current state of the weather around you.

“You don’t need to tell me twice.” You reply, and stick the tracker into your front pocket for safekeeping. “Let’s go back to our shelter from before to wait out the storm before heading back to the Spire.”

She gives you a quick nod, and you follow her back down the hill carefully so you don’t slip. The storm gets heavier by the time you both get to the ruins, and you’re utterly soaked when you get inside. You’re both dripping onto the cold floor with the storm raging outside.

It looks the same as you left it. You know it’s only been like, two weeks since you left this area, but it feels so  _ long _ since you’ve been here. Your leaf pile is still intact, as well as the leftover pile of wood that you couldn’t carry with to the Spire. It’s weirdly quiet, even with the noisy wind outside. You’re torn out of your thoughts when Spinel clears her throat.

“I’m gonna build a fire to wait out the storm.” She says as she walks over to the pile of wood, and grabs a couple pieces to start a small fire.

“What if it passes quickly?” You cross your arms, shivering. Spinel turns her head to look at you purposefully, quirking an eyebrow in judgement.

“I already know you hate being soaked. Do you really want to walk the several miles back like that?” She gestures to you, looking at you from head to toe, dripping and shivering everywhere.

“You have a point, I guess.” You retort, and she turns back to the fire she’s building.

You watch her quickly build the fire. She’s quicker than you, actually, and you’re weirdly kind of proud of her for it. You’re trying to not let your mind focus on the fact that she’s doing this all for you, as you feel weird about it. She doesn’t need to get warm, or dry. She’s concerned about you, specifically.

When she’s done, she turns to you with a ‘well?’ expression, and pats the ground next to her. You comply, and sit down as close to the blazing fire as possible. You bring your legs as close to yourself as you can, shivering violently against your will. She turns to look at you, and considers you for several long moments. You meet her eyes, saying nothing. She blinks, and you feel your heart rate pick up pace for literally no reason. You’re a bit done with it lately, honestly.

“What.” You speak up, nervous as to why she’s just quietly staring at you.

“Are ya’ gonna just sit there in wet clothes..” She blinks, staring at you expectantly.

“..maybe. I think I’ll be okay.” You reply, and another shiver racks your body, betraying you. 

“Y/N. Please don’t be stubborn about this, you’re difficult enough as is. We both know that you aren’t going to get dry like that.” She levels you with an unamused look, and huffs out a sigh.

“Oh? Are you gonna try ripping my clothes off me again if I don’t?” You hold your hands out to the fire, attempting and failing to warm them for the most part. You sort of realized what came out of your mouth seconds after it leaves, and your heart beats wildly underneath your skin.

“I’m not gonna-” She cuts herself short, and you can see a blush rising on her face, and  _ fast. _ “I only tried that because nothing I said was getting through to you, ya’ know.”

“Yeah, because you were an asshole.” You chuckle, and try your best to not stare at her face that you’re finding rapidly endearing. 

“I know, and I am sorry! But really, Y/N.” She coughs awkwardly into her gloved hand. “You should take off your clothes. I don’t want you getting sick.”

Of course, she’s gotta be all caring about it. She’s basically twisting your arm at this point.

“Fine.” You pull your arms back from the fire in front of you, and grab the hem of your shirt. “But can you maybe like.. look away?”

She rolls her eyes dramatically and turns her face away, and you pull your wet shirt off with some difficulty, slapping it down next to the fire. “If it makes ya’ feel any better, I can take my clothes off too?” 

“Pfft, no.” You snort, and hook your thumbs into the belt loops of your jeans to pull them off. You struggle, but manage to remove them after quite a bit of effort. “That’s a bit ridiculous.”

“You’re the ridiculous one, honestly. I’ve seen ya’ basically naked before.” She reaches over to the other side of the room, and grabs two of the largest leaves to give to you to cover yourself with. The small gesture has you feeling something you aren’t quite grasping yet. Touched? Maybe. “Not understanding why you’re so conscious about it now.”

“I feel like this is one of those things where me being a human factors into the answer.” You reply, grabbing the leaves from her and covering your torso. You’re still cold, but at least you aren’t sopping wet now.

“You’re not so different from me.” She lowers her eyes at you, nearly squinting. 

“I’ve never seen a gem get self conscious in my life.” You huff out, scooting closer to the fire. You want as much warmth as possible. “You can shapeshift your bodies to whatever you want. What’s there to be self conscious about?”

“We can reform and hate what we look like.” She stares at you.

Oh. Sometimes you say things you kind of regret.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t tryi-”

“It’s alright, I know you don’t mean it like that anyway.” You watch her as she realizes that she’s still soaked, looking down at herself. She makes quick work of making herself dry again. “I haven’t looked like this for long, so I’m still getting used to it.”

“Well, I’m still sorry for implying that you don’t get self conscious.” You grab the shirt you laid out in front of you, and squeeze out the water so it could dry a little faster. Spinel grabs your jeans, and does this weird twisty thing with her arms, squeezing quite a bit of the excess water out of them. She lays it back down flat, close to the fire on her side. You spread the shirt down on the hard cement, and a violent shiver erupts down your spine.

Spinel coughs beside you, and you turn to look at her. She’s got her arm up, implication apparent with her raised eyebrows.

“C’mon, you’re freezing. Let me help.” 

You figure, why not. You scoot a little closer to her, and she wraps an arm around you immediately, pressing you flush against her side. You feel warmer instantly, and almost let out a sigh of relief. Sure, your heart won’t calm the fuck down, but who gives a fuck about that thing anyway? You hope she can’t feel it beating since she’s so close. 

The wind howls in the background and the rain pelts against your shelter harshly, yet it seems almost quiet with you two and the fire, almost like you’re surrounded in a bubble. A cold droplet of water falls from your hair and onto your legs folded in front of you, and you watch the bead trail down your thigh in the light of the fire. You are trying to  _ not _ think about Spinel next to you.

“Warm?” Spinel says.. almost softly, as she looks down at you. The light of the fire flickers across her face, creating strange shadows.

“Yeah, actually. Thanks.” You reply, giving her a half smile. She smiles back at you, and there is either warmth in her gaze, or that’s just the fire flickering in her pupils. You just realized how close her face is to yours, and you feel your brain and heart both screaming at you at the same time as you feel your face heat up a little.

_ It would be so easy for you to lean in and kiss her. _

The intrusive thought is so jarring that your face drops visibly and you feel your eyes going wide. Spinel catches on immediately.

“Y/N? You okay?” She leans in a bit closer to your face, enough to feel her breath. “Ya’ look like ya’ just ate somethin’ horrible.” 

With your thoughts running wild, you blink several times to try to clear your head of them.

“Er, yeah.” You shake your head. “Just got some really bad cramps randomly. Ignore it.” You say dismissively. More rain pelts the shelter, and it drowns out some of your thoughts. 

“If you say so.” She replies, but the look on her face says she doesn’t really believe you anyway. As if it’s any more possible, she squeezes you closer to herself.

The light of the fire flickers wildly, and you watch her face as she stretches her arm across the room several feet, grabbing another piece of wood and placing it on the burning pile. Your eyes are drawn to the lines on her cheeks, and the way the light shapes it. You wonder if those were there before she reformed, and what she looked like without them. Without realizing what you’re doing, your palm is placed upon her cheek. It’s.. very warm.

She turns to look at you with wide eyes, and you find yourself unable to breathe as your stomach drops.

“Uh. What are ya’ doin?” She says apprehensively, and you rip your hand away from her face once you come about your senses. 

“Nothing. Sorry. I spaced out for a minute there..” You say, feeling your face heat up. You’re way too much of a disaster today, and you feel like the easiest thing you could do right now would be to get up and flee. Except there’s a storm out there, and you’re nearly naked.

Nearly naked, and pressed up to a gem in a small shelter, on a different planet. You know, when you thought of your life a month ago, you didn’t exactly think this is where you’d be.

“Why’d you touch my face?” She says, curiously, a bit of an edge to her tone of voice. You’re starting to see a flush break out upon her cheeks. She’s.. she’s cute, you’re starting to admit to yourself.

“I was looking at the lines on your face. Not sure why my hand did that.” You admit out loud with a sigh.

“Ya’ kinda weird.” She replies with a chuckle.

“Listen, you aren’t one to talk. You of all people cannot say that to me.”

“Pfft, why? What’d I ever do?”

“Do you not remember the last time we were in this position? You kissed me ‘because I looked cold’, Spinel.” You say, completely deadpan. You watch her face light up like a cherry in mere seconds.

“S-shut up! Ugh, whatever. I'm not gonna talk about that.” She sputters, turning her face from yours to gaze at the fire blazing in front of you. “I’m glad I made this fire, because look, it’s still pouring like crazy out there. It’s also getting late.”

“Yeah. We should probably wait to go back until morning.” You sigh, and grab your shirt. It’s basically dry, you guess. You put it on, since you’re definitely dry yourself now. 

“Ya’ wanna pass out soon?” She asks, looking back to you.

“Do we have anything else to do?”

"Watch the rain?" She replies with a shrug.

"Nah. I'd rather sleep." You grab your pants off the floor, and they're still a bit damp. It's fine enough, you figure, and struggle to put those back on.

When you're done, you walk over to the leaf pile you had left, and flop on it. You immediately regret doing this.

"I miss my tarp pile." You rub at your bottom, feeling sore. 

"It's definitely better than this." Spinel says as she leans down to sit beside you, nothing better to do. "It feels weird to sleep this way now."

"My back is gonna hate me later for this." You lay down on your side, feeling the stretch of your aching muscles. 

You cover yourself with a couple of the large leaves, and have a hard time falling asleep.

-

You have problems staying asleep. You wake up an hour later, and it's still raining outside. You think about cursing the sky briefly, as you feel Spinel breathe softly next to you. She's on her back with her head rolled over closer to you, leaning gently on your shoulder with a bit of drool on her mouth. You think it's cute. You watch her sleeping for a while, the gem on her chest rising and falling with every breath, and she shifts in her sleep slightly.

You feel yourself drifting off again, leaning into her warmth. 

-

You aren't sure if you're conscious or not when you feel a hand slide around your stomach, and an arm pulling you to press into something warm behind you. There is something hard pressing into the middle of your back, and there is a body nearly molded against your form.

Once your eyes open, the only thing you see is darkness. The hand trails down your side, slipping underneath your shirt. You feel a warm palm on the skin of your hip, and it traces some of the skin there, tenderly.

Murmuring. It's kind of fuzzy. You can't make out any distinct voices, but it's familiar.

The hand trails up your middle, the feeling nearly setting your skin on fire in sensation. The hand moves to your breast - cupping it in palm, and your mind can't move fast enough to realize what's happening. You can't move at all.

"Y/N." You hear the voice of someone pretty familiar behind you. A finger grazes slowly over your nipple as you feel hot air against your neck, making you shiver.

The hand slips out from your shirt and all of a sudden you're flipped into your back. You feel someone climb on top of you, sitting on your hips, and there's hands holding your arms above your head. You still cannot move. 

You.. recognize your surroundings. You’re in your bedroom back on Earth. You still have the posters and drawings Steven had put up on the walls last year in the summer. There’s a warm glow coming through the window blinds, and you can make out the person in front of you.

It’s Spinel.

She’s wearing one of your old shirts, and her hair isn’t tied up. She’s smirking at you.

“Said you had time for me earlier, but ya’ fell asleep on me.” She says softly, almost like a whisper, and leans forward until her nose is practically touching yours. She squeezes her hands, tightening her grip on your wrists as if you even had a chance to break free.

You think words come out of your mouth that she can seem to understand, but you can only hear mumbling and white noise. She nudges her face against yours, kissing you with a fervor you didn’t expect her to possess. 

She lets go of one of your wrists, choosing instead to bring her hand down to cup your jaw, tilting your face so she can slide her lips against yours a little better. You find your own hand in her hair, fingers digging into her scalp as the full weight of her warmth presses into you. Her thighs pin your hips down, and you can feel that the both of you aren’t wearing any pants. Just underwear.

She pulls back from the kiss, lips wet and glistening in the small amount of light from what you can see, and sits back up. She grabs the hem of her shirt and lifts it over her head, pulling it off completely and tossing it to the side of your room. Her gem glows a soft light, illuminating her breasts and some of her face. She’s very attractive, and you’re staring at her without caring what you look like.

She leans back slightly, reaching behind her to rub at your thigh. She squeezes the skin there, each finger digging into the meat of your leg possessively.

“I like touching you.” She says, both of her hands roaming your body as if to memorize it. You say something to her again, and she leans right back into your personal space, rolling her eyes dramatically. “You should be a little more patient, honestly.”

You feel her thighs clench, and with a roll of her hips she grinds down against you. The feeling is nearly overwhelming. She grabs your hands with hers, pressing them down into the mattress on either side of your head. Her gaze, lust-ridden, meets yours - and her lips are parted slightly.

She kisses you and grinds down again, moaning into your mouth. There isn’t much you can do considering you’re pinned, as much as you’d like your hands on her hips. She easily falls into a rhythm, rolling hips stuttering against your own.

She’s desperate as she kisses you - sliding her tongue in, completely flooding your senses. The sounds of her panting in between kisses is really starting to get to affect you. She pulls her lips away momentarily, looking you in the eyes.

“Y/N, I-”

You wake up into a dead silence.

There’s not much you can hear other than Spinel sleeping beside you, and the slight rustling of trees. It has stopped raining, and you have no idea what time it is. You open your eyes to see the dark wall of the ruins.

Your heart is pounding, and you can feel your hands start to shake in anxiety. Spinel has her arm wrapped around you, and you very gently lift it off of your body.

You can barely look at her right now. You’re aroused, confused, and mortified. You don’t want to be here right now, next to her. You’re on the verge of a panic attack, and you need to find somewhere else to breathe.

You get up, careful to not disturb her at all, and leave the ruins with as much quietness as your body lets you.

It’s kind of cold out, but that isn’t something you’re concerned about right now. Your legs move on your own, mind going a thousand miles a second as you’re walking in a random direction to put as much distance between you and Spinel as possible.

Within what feels like a minute or two, you reach the lake you had first found that creature by. The light from the moons illuminate the fog drifting a few feet off the ground, and there are glow bugs flying around, softly blinking all around you. You take a seat on the largest boulder, and stare out at the sky.

Your brain is quickly going through way too many emotions all at once. Your arms clutch around your sides, cold air making goosebumps raise along your skin.

You think at first, about the inevitability of your own denial. You know already, as your brain is processing several things, that you like her. And you know that you want to deny this.

You feel so, so incredibly stupid about this. All of this. 

You’re not.. you’re not used to having feelings for someone. Let alone a gem. Who stranded you here, and was horrible, and now after all this time she isn’t. She’s a decent person who made some really shitty mistakes, but who  _ hasn’t? _ We all have things we regret. 

So.. what. You have feelings. You aren’t going to act on them, that would be utterly ridiculous. 

You hear movement behind you, and whip your head around to see what made it.

Spinel is standing there with a horribly distraught face. Your heart drops immediately.

“Why’d you leave?” She asks, voice almost.. fragile. She walks closer to you.

“I-I-” Your voice cuts out, and you freeze up. You aren’t ready to face her yet. “I needed some fresh air.”

Her eyebrows furrow, face contorting with hurt. She balls her fists, and you can see them shaking. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were sleeping and I d-didn’t want to wake you.” You curse yourself internally for your voice coming out shakily.

“I woke up alone, without you anywhere in sight. I thought something maybe happened to you? I-” She seems to be kind of frantic.

“Spinel, I wouldn’t just. Leave you. You know that right?”

“Maybe? I don’t know that..” She crosses her arms, shoulders seemingly stiff.

“You can trust me. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

She looks at you vulnerably, and your heart aches. 

“I’m not Pink.” You state.

“I know. You’re.. so much better than she ever was to me, anyway.” She says with a sigh, and her posture visibly relaxes. “Why’d you really come out all the way here?”

“No reason.” You shrug, and cross your arms. She takes another step closer to you, leaning into your space. You’re not ready for her to be this close right now.

“I can tell when something’s bothering ya’, you know. Spill it.” She leans against the boulder you’re sitting on, arm briefly brushing against yours. Without thinking, you scoot a couple inches further from her.

Her face drops instantly, and there’s.. pain in her eyes. You are full of mistakes today, it seems.

“Sorry. Did I do something to upset you..?” She leans further away from you self consciously. 

“No!” You exclaim, and her eyes widen a bit at your raised voice. “I’m just. I’m sorry, I’m trying to work through something right now and my brain isn’t functioning how I need it to. You’ve done nothing wrong, Spinel.”

“Do ya’ wanna talk about it?” She offers. You scream a resounding ‘ _ UH? NO. IT’S ABOUT YOU, YOU IDIOT.’  _ in your head.

“Mm, no. I better not.” You cough into your hand.

“I think ya’ should. I felt loads better after I talked to you about my issues, and I bet it would help to talk about it? I’m willing to listen.” Her face is slightly concerned, looking at you.

You’d rather eat your own foot than admit your newfound feelings for her right now.

"I don't have the capability to put words to the problems I'm facing right now, Spinel."

"Is it something we've talked about before? We're friends now, you can tell me." She prys, and you can't even be mad at her for it. She's actually wanting to help you, despite not knowing that honestly, she can't help you with this.

Your heart swells with so much affection that you’re unable to suppress it bubbling up inside you. You feel stupid about this. It feels utterly absurd to have feelings for her, in a matter of weeks, and you’ve only recently stopped hating her, it feels like. She's making this downright difficult for you, unintentionally.

"Listen.." You sigh. "I'm still trying to sort out this shit in my head. It's the entire reason why I needed to get air. Could we discuss this later? When I'm ready."

"I'm sorry for being so pushy about it." She nervously rubs at her arm. "I just wish I could help."

"Eh, you're fine, really. And this isn't exactly something you can help with.." You look at her briefly, and she’s watching you carefully. A glow bug slowly drifts near her head, landing on one of her twintails. “How’d you find me out here, anyway?”

“There’s really only a few places you’d go to nearby, and I didn’t think you’d just walk out into the trees. I just guessed right.” She replies, the glow bug blinking on her head. Another one joins it, landing on the opposite twintail. It’s like she has light up hair accessories, and it’s almost comical.

“Honestly, I kind of just ran here without thinking. It’s like you knew exactly where I’d go.” You shake your head a bit in mild disbelief. “You have some kind of tracker on me or something?”

“No, I just think maybe I know you more than you think.” Part of her face lifts in a kind of wry half-smile. 

The fog floats around you two, thick wafts of mist lingering where you step. With the lake and trees also covered in the fog, and the moons clear up above, it almost seems ethereal here with all of the blinking glow bugs drifting around.

“Yeah?” You side eye her. “What’s my favorite color?”

She stares at you like you’ve grown another head, and then her expression changes into more of a smirk.

“I think I can guess.”

“Try me.” You fold your arms in front of your chest. The chill is getting to you, a little.

“Green.” She says, with the full confidence of someone who thinks they’re spot on.

“Nope.” You reply smugly. Her face is looking comically betrayed.

“Is it blue?” 

“Nope!”

“Red?”

“Spinel, now you’re just guessing the most common colors. It’s purple.” You chuckle, and she crosses her arms with a bit of a pout that she’s hiding. What a brat.

“Well, I would’ve known if you maybe had told me sometime.” She sounds so sulky. You watch another glow bug hover over her gem, and land right next to it on her chest. She’s got three on her now, like she’s attracting them. She doesn’t seem to notice.

“I would’ve told you if you had asked, you know.” You roll your eyes at her. You can’t help smiling, really. It’s like being around her makes your face and heart do incredibly stupid things, somehow.

“So I just have to ask? It’s that easy?”

“Uh, yeah?” You reply, and watch as  _ another _ glow bug lands on her head. 

“So.. can I ask you something else?”   
  
“Go for it.” You shrug.

“What’s your favorite game to play?” She asks with a curious raise to her eyebrow. You feel like the glow bug on her chest is blinking at you in morse code.

“Doom.” You reply. 

“Uh.. what’s that?” She looks absolutely perplexed. “How do you play that?”

“With a controller?” You’re not quite understanding what she’s getting at.

“No, Y/N, I mean like tag.” Her deadpan expression makes you almost laugh. How were you supposed to know that’s what she was really asking?

“Oh, you like kid games? I’m a big fan of Duck Duck Goose myself.” 

“Did you just make that up?” She looks like she doesn’t believe you.

“No!” You chuckle. “It’s real, I promise.”

“Okay, then show me how it’s played.”

“We can’t play it with just two people, first of all. And you’re a bit ridiculous if you think I wanna teach you how to play a child’s game right now, out here, in the middle of the night.” You uncross your arms, and switch the leg you’re leaning on. You think you should head back soon to sleep, because you’re getting tired again and it’s cold.

“Ya’ know, you can be quite irritating sometimes.” She chuckles softly. There are quite a few more glow bugs gravitating around her, another one landing on her shoulder.

“Whatever, you like me.” You reply to that, voice mocking her. You weren’t expecting for her face to turn a bright red, or to make a choking noise.

“Augh! I’m about to take back calling us friends. You’re beyond my help.” She crosses her arms over her gem, disturbing the insect on it enough for it to leave.

“You can’t do that!” You laugh heartily. “What kind of companion gem are you?! Don’t make me demote you to carebear status.”

“I don’t even know what a carebear is!” She cries out in confusion, and you laugh even harder. 

“Don’t worry about it.” You move yourself from leaning on the large rock. “Anyway, I think we should head back and pass out until daybreak.”

“Fiiiine.” She replies, unmoving. You watch her glance around the perimeter of the lake.

“You should uh,” You take a step or two closer to her. “You should probably get these guys off you, first.”

“Excuse me?” She gives you a look.

“The glow bugs seem to like you, I think.” You point at her head and chuckle. A few more had joined their comrades. She looks around at herself, eyes going wide much to your amusement.

“What the fuck!” She exclaims with such surprise and disgust that you double over laughing. You can barely catch your breath as she flails around, swatting them all off her almost like she’s some kind of cartoon character. “Stop laughing, you ass! Why are they all around  _ me!?” _

“Maybe because of your gem? Like moths to a light.” You say in between chuckles. It takes a while for you to regain any sense of normalcy in your breathing.

“That makes.. absolutely no sense to me.” The sarcasticness of her tone almost makes you laugh again.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe they’re just attracted to idiots.” You look to her, smugly, and turn around to walk back to the shelter. You hear her sputter behind you.

“Ya’ wanna say that to my  _ face, _ Y/N?” She replies, and you hear her stomping quickly behind you. You pick up your walking speed into a brisk pace.

“Nah, I’m alright over here!” You say as you break out into a sprint.

Her fake cries of anger and her running to catch up behind you has you laughing on the way back for far too long. 

Your heart feels a little lighter tonight.

-

The next day is pretty sunny, oddly enough. It’s still humid, but it makes the walk home a little better than the previous day. 

You and Spinel discuss going into the tunnels heavily, to be prepared. You have no idea what’s actually in there, or the conditions it’s in, or how far it goes. You’re nervous, but she reassures you that there can’t be anything super dangerous in there. You think she’s wrong, somehow, but you’re unable to convince her.

You’re currently outside right now, with Spinel. You’re trying to figure out what tree has the best type of sap for a small torch. You and her had already tested the type that comes from the most common looking tree here, and it burns much too quickly and hotly for you to use for any longer than ten minutes. You’re a little frustrated at it, honestly.

“Spinel, what if we can’t find something that works?” You ask her as you’re walking next to her, you’re both in a familiar area about fifteen minutes from the Spire. 

“We’ll find something. And if we can’t find a sap, I’m sure if we capture a bunch of those bugs from the other night, we’ll have enough light for  _ something. _ ”

“That wouldn’t even work.” You roll your eyes. “We just gotta keep looking, I guess.”

“Would you prefer if we split up to hit a couple of different places? It’ll be a lot faster and we’ll get more done.” She gives you a look, considering you for a moment. “We can meet back up at the Spire to test out what we’ve got so far in a couple hours.”

“It would be a good idea, I think. There’s a grove of trees on the opposite side of the Spire from here that’s different from the rest, and I’d like to check out that one.” You stop walking, and she faces you.

“So, meet me by the Spire when the sun’s about three quarters in the sky?” She raises an eyebrow in question, hand over her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Sounds good.” You adjust the cloth bag on your shoulder so it sits a bit more comfortably.

“Alright, see ya’ then.” She says with a smile, and you ignore the way it makes your heart flutter. She spins around to keep walking, and you ahead back in the opposite direction.

With the sun beating down on you from high up in the sky, you feel sweat beading on your forehead despite that you’re just walking. It’s so irritating.

It takes you nearly an hour to get where you wanted to go because you got distracted with passing a small body of water. It’s hot, okay. You take a shortcut to the grove up ahead, squeezing through some dense areas of jungle. 

After nearly tripping several times on these large tree roots sticking out of the ground all over in various places, you take a moment to breathe for a second. You notice the air smells.. weird over here. You can’t really describe it. Off to the side, you see this off-color area of dirt in front of two trees that are fairly close together, and walk over to examine it.

It’s looser soil than the rest, and the consistency is a bit off. You pick some up in your hand, sniffing it. It doesn’t smell any different.

You stand back up, and feel the ground shift underneath you. You try to step away quickly, but instead trip on another root, falling to the ground.

There’s several loud noises that sound like the earth shifting and you see the trees shake as the dirt all around you starts to open, sinking into something. You scramble for anything to get a grip on, soil slipping downwards all around you. You manage to grasp a tree root as more of your body gets pulled with the dirt downwards, and try not to panic at what’s happening.

All of a sudden a rock as large as your head flows much too quickly with the soil around you, and it hits you in the shoulder hard enough for you to lose your grip.

You fall into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, to be gay and stupid.


	13. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies in advance

You shout as you slide down with the moving soil as if anyone can even hear you, attempting to grab anything for purchase - but your hands can only grasp dirt. You cup your face as rocks and dirt fly all around you, much of it getting into your mouth.

Your heart and head are both pounding, and most of your body is stuck in soil right now as you try to not have a panic attack about your current situation. After nearly a minute with the dust settling, you realize that you've sunk nearly forty feet down into something - a single beam of light coming down on you from above.. you break out into a coughing fit as more particles get into your mouth. You try getting one arm out - it takes you nearly five minutes of wiggling your arm in the loose dirt to pry it free.

Next, you scrape away the rocks and dirt against your chest, moving as much as you can away from you with a single arm. Once your other arm is pried free, you work at the rest of the landslide around you as you manage to control your breathing. 

It takes you the better part of half an hour, but you're free. You look like a kid that decided to have _ too _ much fun at the park, after you look down at yourself. You feel itchy and gross, but you're proud of yourself for mainly staying calm and not freaking yourself out into another _ worse _ situation.

Okay.

You look around you - you can't see much of anything, as it's very dark around you aside from the light up above. You're underground, and you can really only see dirt. Are you in some sort of pocket? 

You think you might be able to climb up from where you've slid all the way down. You lift one of your legs up to gain purchase on the dirt that looks most steady, but as you step into it your foot just sinks down. You try hoisting yourself up in several areas, but the dirt just crumbles or slips out from your grasp. You can't get a decent hold on anything, it seems.

There are some tree roots sticking out of the dirt above you in a couple places. You think it seems decently manageable, trying for those. It takes you a couple tries, reaching for the lowest one. You think it might be possible to use these like some kind of rockwall, if you can get a grip on that first one, and use them to climb back up. You find that the only way for you to get up to the first one is to build a small pile of dirt up, but you do actually manage to grab it after a couple of enthusiastic jumps.

Once you have that root in hand, you pull on it hard twice to make sure it's stable enough, and sure enough it is. You pull yourself up tentatively, it's hard, but your time on this planet the last few weeks have toughened up your muscles. You're a little proud of yourself.

You manage to get yourself up a good six feet by the time you have to reach for another root, and you nearly slip. _ This wouldn't even be a problem if Spinel was with you. _ She could just.. stretch her arms and throw you up there. Fucking gems and their stupid weird abilities that you're definitely not jealous of. 

You find yourself annoyed that this shit seriously has to happen at the _ worst _ times. 

This would be even less of a problem if you had like.. not taken a shortcut. Because while _ you _ know where you are, Spinel does not. And you know you're far enough away from the regular path that she'd never hear you even if you screamed. You feel so fucking stupid for getting cocky out here. 

You sigh out loud through your teeth, and resign to pretending things are okay and that you're not always 2 steps from complete disaster. You reach out for the other root, grasping it firmly and cementing your left foot a bit higher on the wall. So good so far. Maybe at this rate, you'll get out and can meet back up with Spinel and pretend this little incident never happened. She'll wonder why you're covered in dirt, again.. but you don't need to divulge in specifics. She'll just admonish you for going off path.. and basically every single other bad decision you've made.

You get up a few more feet - it's fucking difficult, you're not going to lie. You haven't had to do much of any climbing on this planet so far, and you weren't expecting for it to strain so badly on your arms. You guess that the gravity has some to do with it, and the rest on this shitty soil. It smells pungent and moldy, and you're trying to not breathe much in as it's making your head spin the more you inhale. When you think you're about halfway up, you make the mistake of looking down. 

Instantly, you feel the room spinning, and you close your eyes to not cause any further nausea to build up. You grip the root in both hands, feet firmly planted in the soil in front of you, legs straining with all of your weight and tiredness. You're extremely proud of yourself for getting up this far by yourself, and in these circumstances to boot. 

You lift up your right foot to keep climbing up, but your shoe catches on a fairly large smooth rock, causing you to slip. You hold on to the tree root as hard as you can as you feel more dirt slip out from beneath your feet. In the several seconds it takes for all of this to happen, you look down again to see that you're basically suspended, and you have very little to work with now as you reach for any kind of purchase to grab onto. 

Your hand slips, suddenly, and you fall.

-

You don't remember passing out, but your entire fucking body hurts and you can't see shit. You can hear wind, and there's a steady pattern of water dripping onto your face.

You sit up slowly, as you start to regain memories of what just happened in the last day. You were out gathering sap with Spinel. You guys split up.. Your eyes start to adjust to the darkness around you. Oh, right. You fell. Looking up, you see that it's clearly night out. 

Okay, fuck. You were supposed to meet with Spinel. Your mind starts to reel a little, panic bubbling up in your gut.

Stay calm. It's not like it's impossible for her to find you. You think for a moment about shouting for her, and then realize that it would be utterly stupid. Who knows where she's at right now, and besides, it's raining. She wouldn't be able to hear you beyond thirty feet out there anyway! And you're in a hole in the ground!

Speaking of holes. You stand up - and immediately stumble and need to lean against the wall to support yourself. You're pretty fucking sure you sprained your ankle. 

Great.

You test your weight on it, and it fucking hurts, not gonna lie. You don't have much of a choice, though. You maneuver yourself to the darker, drier side of the hole - so that the rain isn't coming down on you directly. You sigh, cursing yourself. You wish Spinel was here.

You hate that she's who you're thinking of, instead of like, you don't know, Steven. The Crystal Gems. Lars. Wow, yeah your standards for companionship are completely skewed right now. 

You start to notice the walls next to you seem almost familiar in shape. All around you, and.. beyond, you realize. Relief, and a wave of dread hits you, much like running directly into a concrete barrier. How did you not realize before?

You didn't fall into a pocket. You hit a soft spot above one of the _ fucking tunnels _ and caused a landslide somehow, and caused half the tunnel to collapse. You have a clear path behind you - it was just hidden in murky darkness that you can now start to kind of see in.

You stand there for a few minutes, staring into the darkness and weighing your options. Option. You have just the one. 

You just.. really don't want to.

Your eyes adjust a bit more, and you think _ 'well, it's now or never,' _ to yourself. 

Slowly, you painfully limp down this tunnel by yourself as the rain starts to fade away behind you, and instead, the eerie softness of underground settles in. It’s taking quite a bit of effort from you to walk right now. Spinel’s going to absolutely rip into you for getting yourself into this mess, and for hurting yourself. You’re not looking forward to it at all. You’re pretty sure she’s beside herself with worry about you and is out right now looking for wherever you could be, and probably thinks you’re dead. Or worse.. that you left her.

Which.. you would never do to her now. She doesn’t deserve that. This is the longest you’ve been separated from her since meeting her, you think. You hope she’s not freaking out too bad over this, but based on her previous reactions to you momentarily disappearing, you kind of doubt it. 

You’re lost in thought a bit while you’re trying to ignore the pain in your foot, when you realize that you can sort of.. see in here. Your eyes adjust to some kind of.. glow along the walls? You stop in your tracks to examine the dirt at your eye level. It’s.. there’s a film on the dirt, now that you’re looking closer at it. It’s kind of sparkly? Which is utterly fucking strange. It must be old, because it doesn’t wipe off when you run your finger along it. You can see maybe eight to ten feet in front of you vaguely thanks to the luminescent cave slime. Nice. Looks like you really didn’t need a torch down here after all. Spinel would definitely be making fun of you for this.

You keep going at your extremely slow pace. You feel like ages have gone by, stumbling at this slow crawl, as you trail your hand along the wall in case you lose your balance. Walking this much on a sprained ankle is definitely going to make it so much worse in recovering, but it’s not as if you have a choice in this. Sometimes you hear the occasional drip echo in the one direction ahead of you, but you hear nothing else in the ambient of this tunnel. You have no idea how long this one is, but you hope to be near an exit soon. You’ve been walking basically in a straight line this entire time. Your muscles are aching terribly.

After a while longer, the air starts to smell a little.. funkier. You don’t really know how to describe it, other than it smells heavy and a bit musky. You’re pretty sure that’s just from the warm dirt all around you, though. As you keep walking, the air starts to feel a little different the further you go along. Your hand hits an abrupt end to the wall, and you squint out as you come to a stop to realize that you’ve come to a fork in your so-called road.

You look down each side it splits to - you can see barely anything. There’s nothing either way. You lick your finger and stick it out into the open to discern an air flow direction, but it seems mainly stagnant much to your frustration. You think you can try something else, and cup your hands around your mouth, making a loud noise to pan out in each direction.

You hear your voice echo out down both tunnel paths, and curse out loud to yourself. 

Fuck! You have no idea which direction is best to go in. You lean against the tunnel wall, sliding down to sit and rest your ankle. It’s in agony now, and you’re doing your best to ignore it as much as you can. You’ll get back up in a couple minutes when you figure out if left or right is your best course of action to not fuck your ankle further.

You pull your foot in closer to yourself and pull up your jeans to expose some of your skin. It’s extremely bruised and purpling around your joints, and you wince as you test your pain tolerance. It’s swollen. You consider maybe tearing your sleeve to make some kind of compression, but think better of it. It would be utterly pointless to tear up your only clothes for this. You lean your chin on your knee, feeling stupidly tired.

You know you shouldn’t, but you want to rest for a little while before you keep going. You have no idea how much longer of a walk you’ve got ahead of you, and everything hurts. It’ll just be for a bit.

You close your eyes.

-

You wake up laying on a dirt floor, and have a mini panic attack before realizing where you are.. and then you just get irritated and worried. You have no idea how long you were asleep, but you’re groggy as fuck now. Something is digging into your hip, so you sit up. Your ankle lights up in pain, and you slap a hand over your mouth as you howl out in agony. You almost forgot about that happening..

You feel what was digging into your side, and pull the tracker out of your pocket, as well as that blade from the Spire. You stare at the tracker for a minute, the little red light still visible to you. Weirdly enough, it still gives you hope. Even though you’re lost underground right now, on a strange and faraway alien planet.. you still have a tiny smidge of hope. 

You think it’s a little ironic that you’re not scared, when you have every right to be. No one knows where you are right now, and you’re injured. You don’t even know if any of these tunnels lead you back to the surface. You’re trying your best to lie to yourself to keep up the facade of calmness, and it’s kind of working.

Anyway.

You get up from your sitting position, and it takes you much longer than you’d like to admit. It hurts like a bitch to walk, like what the fuck are legs even useful for if they just hurt? You’ve decided to take a left, because fuck going right. That side of the tunnel just seemed cursed, anyway. You are so extremely grateful for the luminescent sparkly walls, because walking alone in here is kind of like.. your worst nightmare? Or was. 

You used to think getting kidnapped and held against your will and being generally helpless to your situation was your kind of worse-case-scenario, but now that you’ve actually gone through it.. Eh. You’d just laugh at yourself now. You’re pretty sure you’d also yell at yourself about some Stockholm shit considering you’ve kinda fallen for your captor, but that’s a discussion to completely disregard later.

You’re walking down this swampy tunnel, leg in complete misery, when you hear something. You stop in your tracks immediately to listen to it. 

It’s a.. scuffle. Like the sound of something solid hitting the dirt. 

Your heart rate picks up.

Is it.. one of the nocturnal creatures? You ball your fists to stop your hands from shaking. You can’t fight something down here, bare-handed, with your ankle like this. You feel your heart pounding in your chest, and you bite your lip to cause any kind of pain to focus on instead of the panic rising in your chest. WAIT. You have that blade in your pants! Very quietly and calmly, you place your hand on your jeans pocket, feeling the blade resting in the cloth underneath.

The movement stops, and so does your breathing. You slowly grab the blade out of your pocket, flipping it open as quietly as you can and point it at the sound.

You don’t know how long you’re standing there in utter silence. The entire time you’ve been standing still, you’ve seen no movement or sign that it could be a hostile animal. You wait there for several moments longer, and you hear nothing else. Maybe it could have been nothing?

You think you’re a bit paranoid, anyway. 

You take one, two steps forward, and hear movement up ahead. Something moves, slightly, and you freeze again in complete terror.

And then you see a different light in the shape of an upside down heart floating about ten feet in front of you. 

“SPINEL?!” You exclaim in relief, and you jolt to run to her - except your leg erupts in pain. You groan instead, grasping the wall beside you for leverage.

"Y/N!!!" She closes the gap between you two, face full of relief and bewilderment - she looks like she wants to hug you. "I've been looking for you everywhere, and I couldn't find you after we were supposed to meet up, I was so scared - I thought something must have taken you so I went down here to-"

"Spinel, breathe," You say, looking at her face - even in these circumstances, it makes you feel better. You have never been more glad to see her in your entire life. "I'm alive, and that's what matters."

"Do you even know how long I've been looking for you!? Nearly a day! And I've been so scared I was going to find you dead somewhere! How did you even get down here in the first place!? Why didn't you show up to our meeting place!!?" She pelts you with so much at once that you feel like she's about to keel over from worry.

"I didn't come down here on purpose, you know I never wanted to be here in the first place." You close your blade, putting it back into your pocket. Spinel makes a curious kind of face as if she's wondering if you'd have stabbed her. "I fell down here."

"You FELL down here!?" She gives you a perplexed look, eyebrows shooting into her hairline. "How did you manage to do that!?"

"I uh.." You cough into your hand, and pull your ankle up to your knee as you lean on the wall for support. "I took a shortcut along the path to get somewhere faster, and managed to step in an area where the soil collapsed into one of these tunnels. Did you know that they are connected? I've been unable to find my way out."

"Yeah it's how I got lost in here, looking for you." Her eyes drop down to your ankle, and concern blankets her face. "What the fuck is wrong with your foot?"

"I think I sprained it trying to climb my way out, regrettably. Shit fucking hurts." You wince, looking at the massively bruised skin around your ankle.

"Can you walk on it?" 

"Barely. I have to go slow." 

"Well, we gotta get you outta here so we can fix that, as much as I wanted to explore down here." She taps her gem, and pulls something long out of it to hand to you. It's a decently sturdy looking stick. "I knew this would come in handy sometime, you can use this to walk."

"You kept a fucking stick in your gem?" You look at her, perplexed, and slightly amused. "Why? What use would you have for this?"

"Uh.. I don't have to answer that. Also, would you rather me carry you? Because I can do that instead, if ya' want." She gives you a cheeky look. You imagine it for a second, and then push that thought out of your head immediately as you feel your face heat up against your will.

"No, this is fine. Thanks." You quickly say, snapping your mouth shut.

"Suit yourself. Just let me know if it's too much to deal with and I'll carry you." She replies, genuine consideration in her voice. "And.. Y/N.. I'm glad you're mostly unharmed. I was completely terrified that something really bad happened there, for a while." 

God, it's like she's actively trying to come for your heart now. You scream at yourself internally for having feelings show up at a time like this.

"Eh." You shrug casually, like you're not swallowing your feelings. "I think it'll take a lot more to kill me than that."

"Do all humans think they're invincible? Or is that just you?" She gives you a look. You feel like you're immune to her judgement at this point.

"Mm, both. You should see a crowd of drunk dudes at a football game riot."

"I'm not even going to pretend like I'm going to understand that. Anyway. We should move on."

"Yeah, yeah.." You groan, and move from your position leaning on the wall. "This place gives me the creeps, anyway."

"It ain't that bad, the luminous dirt walls make for decent light. And you were so worried about lighting in case something happened to _ me.. _ oh the irony." She says, tone tinged with mockery.

"Oh, shut up, will you." You roll your eyes, and she grins to herself like she just won an argument. You hate how much it makes you like her. Leaning on your stick, you take a step or two, and then look back to her. "Do you even know what direction we should be going?"

"Er, figured we'd go the way you came." She says, lifting up her hand to scratch at the side of her face sheepishly.

"Back my way is a collapsed tunnel. And I have a feeling if we went back to the fork in the path I passed earlier, it'd be counterproductive to getting out of here."

"Well, back my way the path splits in several directions, so we can try there?" 

"Spinel, did you seriously get lost down here?" You give her a slightly judgemental look.

"Look, I was more worried about you than anything. Also, I passed by multiple split paths on the way over here, you really can't expect me to remember which ways I've went." She replies, albeit a bit poutily.

"Fine, you get a pass. And I think going back your way will be best." 

"If ya' say so." She turns to head in the direction she came, and you follow her. "But if we get lost, I'm gonna blame you."

"Me!?" You scoff, doing your best to keep a steady pace without putting too much weight on your ankle. "We're already lost, you idiot! Besides, you came in here on your own volition, I literally_ fell _ in!"

"Well I wouldn't have had to come down here if I wasn't trying to find you!"

"Because I totally fell in here on purpose! God you're an ass, I can't believe I-" You cut yourself off in horror, and Spinel turns her face to look at you in confusion.

"You can't believe you what?" She slows her pace a little, walking right beside you.

"Nothing." You snap your mouth shut. Unbelievable. You really are a fucking disaster, aren't you? You literally just almost confessed your feelings, right then, like an idiot.

"No, what were you gonna say?" She asks again.

"Absolutely nothing. Drop it." You keep walking, making sure to avoid eye contact with her.

"You are impossibly irritating, Y/N." She scoffs, the soles of her feet making more noise than you stumbling around. "And you're hard to read. I can never quite tell where I'm standing with you."

"Good. It keeps you on your toes." You say, making fun of her a bit. 

You're glad she hasn't caught on to your feelings. You aren't entirely sure what you're going to do about them, yet, if you're honest with yourself. You're not going to do _ anything _ about your feelings for her. That's utterly ridiculous, actually. She doesn't even like you. And besides, a human and a gem? Oh, what would people think.. you shake your head from your current thought process, brain nearly short circuiting from even considering any of that.

You both walk slowly in the one direction, Spinel keeping pace with you as she occasionally babbles about nothing in particular. Your mind keeps wandering, worry and irritation plaguing your thoughts. Your foot keeps shooting intense waves of pain throughout your leg that you are finding it increasingly hard to ignore. 

“Why do the walls glow like that?” You tune back in to hear Spinel wonder out loud to herself.

“I.. don’t know, actually.” You answer, and she stops for a moment to stare a little more closely at the tunnel walls. “There’s nothing like this outside on the surface that we’ve seen.”

“It’s so sparkly, and there’s so many colors in here. I kinda like it.” She puts a finger to her lip in consideration, eyes squinting, and places another hand on the wall. She swipes her gloved hand along the dirt, and you see some dirt and sparkles flake off onto the floor. 

“That’s.. kind of weird, actually.” You stare at the wall where her hand had swiped, and the glow in that area has dissipated a bit. You walk up right next to her, and scrape a large amount of the dirt off the wall, sparkles and all. When the dust settles, you can clearly see that the area you messed with is dark, whatever film that was there before now gone. “Huh.” You say out loud.

“What? You can just scrape it off?” Spinel also pushes more dirt off, with the same result.

“What the fuck is this?" You ask out loud. "Is this some kind of paint?"

“Are you serious? You think someone painted this? How does that make any sense?" She stares at you in bewilderment.

“Well, it doesn't, but I don't see you answering any of these questions yourself.” You huff.

“You act like just because I’m a gem, I must know everything.” She says in mild irritation.

“Well, you’re certainly older and have more experience than I do.” You retort.

“Not of stuff like this.” She says, scraping off some of the dirt off the walls into the palm of her hand, examining the sparkles closely. After a couple of seconds she drops it to the ground, and shrugs. “I don't have a clue."

“How helpful.” You say, and turn to leave. You hobble forward, gritting your teeth in pain and curse at your foot inside your head.

It’s bothering you.

You feel like you’re close to discovering something, but you can’t exactly place everything together and it’s frustrating.

“Boy this sure goes on forever. I think we're close to the split I hit earlier, though." She says from beside you, and just after she barely finishes, you see an open area up ahead.

The path seems to branch off in several directions from here.

"Which way did you come from?" You look to her.

"Um." She scratches her head. "I'm pretty sure it was this one." She says as she lifts an arm to point at the path directly to the left of this one.

"You're.. _ pretty _ sure? Are you fucking kidding me, Spinel?" You place your hands on your hips, almost wanting to tear into her. You don't want to be lost down here forever.

"Seriously, I was going out of my mind with worry, okay. You could be _ nice _ to me for once." She rolls her eyes, looking down each path in front of you. There's five.

"I'll be nice when I'm dead. You'll have to pry niceness from my cold, dead fingers."

"One day, you're gonna regret saying that to me. And then you'll be like _ "oh Spinel, you're so funny and cool and a great friend." _when you finally realize how much you've wronged me this entire time." 

"Fat fucking chance. In your dreams, care bear. Let's just take the right tunnel." You keep going, ignoring Spinel's protests behind you.

"Don't call me that! I don't even know what that _ is _!" She sighs disdainfully, keeping pace with you. "And you can't just choose a direction like that. This needs to be a team effort."

You spin around to look at her. "Do you want to go down a different path?"

"Uh.." She looks behind her, considering her choices for a second. "Actually, this is fine."

"That's what I thought." You say smugly, and keep walking ahead. Your ankle is in agony, but you're sure you can manage the rest of the way on your own, you think.

"Brat." You hear her mutter behind you.

"Excuse me?" You clear your throat pointedly.

"Nothing." She answers curtly. You grin to yourself quietly. It's very amusing when you're clearly getting underneath her skin.

After a little while longer of walking you see something in the distance, on the ground.

“I think I see something.” You whisper and you stop, looking at the object fifteen feet ahead. You put an arm out to stop Spinel in her tracks. “Shhh.”

“Don’t shush me.” She retorts beside you, stopping where she stands.

You put a finger to your lips, and squint at whatever is on the ground ahead of you. It’s really dark, so you can’t make out much, so you take a step or two closer. It’s.. well it’s not moving. So it’s not a living organism, much to your relief.

“What is that?” She asks, completely ignoring your motion for her to be quiet.

“Nothing that would kill us, thankfully.” You say sarcastically. “Because if it was something that could, we’d be dead by now. You’re too loud.”

“You have no faith in me. I can take nearly anything.” She replies, and you ignore the look she’s giving you entirely to go examine what lays a couple feet ahead of you.

“Stop trying to convince me that you’re tough shit. I know what you’re like when your sleeping is interrupted. You’re whiny.” You reply to her, mockingly.

“I am not!” She exclaims, sounding completely offended. “Take it back!”

“Nah.” You walk closer to it, carefully, just in case. Once you’re standing in front of it, it takes you a second to realize what it is, because it’s incredibly mangled and bent in ways it was not supposed to.

“An injector..” You say out loud. The gears in your brain are starting to turn, a little.

“An injector? Down here?” She says as she walks up beside you, and just straight up kicks it on the side. Glass and steel crunching echoes out along the tunnel. “What the hell is it doing down here?” 

“Well..” You trail off, staring at the broken glass of the center of the chassis. There are.. marks gouged on it, along the edge, that are strange. Marks that make it seem like something organic brought this down here, and you feel a bit of dread settling at the pit of your stomach. “I have a feeling that something might’ve dragged it here.”

“What do you mean?” She asks. You point to what you’re staring at.

“I’m not sure what could do this to an injector, or _ why _ it would fuck it up like this, but it has to be something incredibly strong, considering this is far away from the kindergarten. Also, what could even bend it like this? This is pretty thick steel.” You lean in a bit further, trying to see if there are any other indicators of what could’ve possibly dealt this kind of damage. You’re not seeing much else.

“So ya’ think it’s some kinda animal?” She looks at you, her face contorted with confusion.

“I don’t know.” You answer. “But whatever it could’ve been, it should be long dead by now, right? I mean.. It’s been a couple thousand years since that incident.”

“Well, yeah. What could live that long besides gems?” She shrugs, staring at the broken injector. “We don’t have anything to worry about.”

“You’re.. probably right.” You say, almost reluctantly. Something in your gut tells you to not relax, though. Like you just can’t. “I just can’t shake this feeling.”

“Ya’ justtttt paranoid, Y/N.” She says, drawing out her words dramatically. She gives you a cheeky wink, and you roll your eyes. You ignore the butterflies it gives you, and you stand back up from your hovering position to keep walking.

Hobbling forward, you’re maybe walking with Spinel for a good five or so minutes when that pungent smell increases maybe tenfold, it hitting your nostrils much like walking into a cloud. You stop in your tracks to cough as it smells not great, nearly gagging for a moment.

“God, what the fuck _ is _ that smell?” You say out loud, waving the air around your face with your hand like it would somehow help dissipate it. “It’s fucking awful.”

You glance over to Spinel to see how she’s fairing, and you freeze momentarily. She’s got this glossed over look to her eyes, and she’s staring out into the tunnel as if she’s spacing out.

“Spinel? You okay?” You ask her. She turns her head slowly to look at you.

“Uh…” Is all she manages to say. Her pupils are blown, but nothing else seems to be wrong with her. She looks like she’s about to start drooling, actually. 

“Spinel?” You say to her, watching her apprehensively. What the fuck? You take another step closer to her, and reach out to grab her by the arm. Still no response. Okay. You shake her arm, and it’s like a dead weight. You smack her side a little, and it doesn’t even jostle her.

How the fuck is she so unresponsive? You’re starting to panic as you’ve never seen her act like this before, and you don’t really know what to do. 

“Spinel,” You say again, watching her face for any kind of response. “Spinel, if you don’t react in the next five seconds I’m gonna slap the shit out of you.” 

No response.

You lift your favored hand, and slap Spinel on the side of her face so hard that her head moves with the force of your hand, and you’re definitely gonna feel that on your palm for the next week. The sound echoes down the tunnel. Several seconds later, she moves her face back to level with yours, and relief floods you.

She breaks out into a seriously goofy kind of grin, and out of her mouth comes a-

_ “Heyyyyyyyyy.” _ As she looks at you stupidly.

"Uh." You answer, like a smart person, as your brain struggles to comprehend what’s going on. "Is your gem cracked?" Your eyes roam over her chest to her gem, seeing nothing wrong with it. 

"Whaddya' mean?" She asks almost innocently, her grin not even phased by your words.

"Are you serious right now!?" You are so, so confused. She blinks at you and you stare at her, in all of your body's screaming agony as she just stands there. “What’s wrong with you?!” You walk around her to see if there is anything physically wrong with her, poking and prodding at her to see how she reacts. She turns her head slowly to you, pupils trailing to yours.

"Whatcha doin', touchin' me all over and stuff? Are ya' flirting with me, Y/N?" She takes a look at herself as if she's also trying to find out what's wrong with her, grinning like a fool.

"I'm not," You stop in your tracks, brain malfunctioning. "Why do you think I'm flirting with you, right here and now, in this dark tunnel!? Are you high?!"

"Listennnnn," She places an outstretched hand upon your upper arm, bringing your attention to her face. "You are always so mad, but I can see flirting from liiike.. a hundred miles away."

“Are you-” You cut yourself off as you realize what’s happening. You’re not sure why you’re not affected, but _ Spinel _ surely is. “Spinel, come here.” You say as you grab her by the arm, and you drag her the opposite direction long enough to not smell that nasty pungent smell anymore.

After a minute or so, she looks at you a little more comprehensively.

“What..” She says in confusion at the entire situation.

“So, not sure what’s happening exactly, but you’re clearly reacting to something in the air.” You state, staring at her. She meets your eyes, but looks as if she doesn’t quite understand. “Spinel, it doesn’t affect me. It’s just affecting you for some reason."

“What do you mean, what’s affecting me? I don’t feel any different..” 

“Yeah, you wouldn’t. Except I know you, and you’re never like this.” You huff out, racking your brain on how to deal with this, but are unable to come up with anything sufficient.

“So what’s the problem? Can’t we just pass through it and be done?” 

“I mean, sure. That’s super easy for _ you _ to say." You retort.

"What do you even mean by that." She looks at you, confused.

"You were incredibly.. how do I say this.." You stop as you watch her eyebrows raise in apprehension. "Idiotic."

"What." Her face drops. "Can you stop being a jerk for five minutes?"

"I'm not trying to insult you right now, I'm serious. You were like a zombie." As soon as those words come out of your mouth, something ticks in your brain. "Wait a second, Spinel."

"What." She crosses her arms.

"Doesn't this seem kinda weird? Why would just YOU be affected by that smell? Considering I'm human, usually it'd be me if anything."

"Um.." She trails off, thinking for a moment. "You're actually right..”

“Do you remember anything that just happened a couple minutes ago?” You ask her.

“It’s mostly fuzzy, actually.” She states.

“Huh. Okay, it’s starting to make a little sense.”

“What is?” She raises her eyebrows in question.

“I think I know how all those gems went missing, now that I’m thinking about it.”

“You don’t think..” She trails off, considering what you have just said. “You think all those gems disappeared down here?”

“With how I just saw you act, it’s really the only thing that remotely makes sense.”

“So, what? The gems came into these tunnels, smelled weird shit and disappeared? We’ve walked a fair bit in here, and we haven’t seen _ any _ signs of gems here at all.” 

“Look, I haven’t figured it all out, I’m just saying. It makes sense, kind of.” You sigh, leaning on the stick Spinel gave you. 

“Okay, even if what you’re saying is true, that happened so long ago I doubt we’d find sufficient evidence of what actually went on.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Regardless.. What’s the plan here?”

“Our options are to either push through and see where that goes, or head back and go in a different direction.”

“Would you prefer to backtrack and possibly get more lost without finding where this goes?” She gives you a look.

“No,” You say, reluctantly. “I’m just a bit nervous about how much the air will affect you.”

“Eh, I’m not worried about it. I trust you to lead my _ idiotic _ self past whatever this is.” She gives you a kind of reassuring grin, but you’re still uneasy, and you don’t know why. Fear of the unknown, maybe?

“If I have to drag you the entire way, I will.” You say to her with a smirk, and turn to walk back to where you two were originally headed.

“I have a feeling this is going to be more painful for me, somehow.” You hear her say as she’s walking beside you.

“I doubt it.” 

The smell hits you again, and you push through it to keep on walking ahead. You hear Spinel’s footsteps start to lag behind you, and you turn to make sure she’s alright. She’s got that glazed over look again, face free from any kind of emotion. 

You don’t like it, but you don’t have much of a choice.

You grab her hand, and keep walking forward. Surprisingly, she keeps up with you, and it almost feels like you’re leading a child. You kind of feel like you should start talking out loud or whistle just to fill the quietness with something.

It’s actually only another hundred yards or so when you see through your straining eyes some kind of end to your tunnel. Or more like, some large.. room, or cavern. The closer you get to it, the slower and quieter you walk out of nervousness.

You stop right at the entrance to this room, and let your eyes adjust to the change in light as you take in everything that your eyes can see. It’s brighter in here, and the entire room is lit up in that weird, sparkly glow along the walls, floor, and even ceiling with piles of rocks and dirt in largely stacked pillars. This room is.. huge. You can’t see the end of it.

“Woooww..” Spinel says from beside you, and you go ahead and just put a palm over her mouth to stop her from talking. Something in your gut tells you that you need to be quiet.

Your gut is actually telling you to just turn around entirely and find another way out, but you’ve come this far, and goddammit do you want to be out of here. You feel like you’re extremely close.

Much to your.. dawning horror, you’re realizing that those pillars of rocks are actually.. Injectors.

What. Your brain is trying to process too much at once as your heart speeds up. Spinel tries to walk into the room by herself, and you pull her back to stand right next to you. You can’t deal with all of this alone, and curse the repugnant stench you still smell around you. It’s stronger now, actually..

There are so many injectors piled all around this room. Hundreds. This is clearly where basically all of them went. How they got in here, you do not know.

“_ Whoa _, shiny..” Spinel rips her hand from yours, and walks over to the injector pile twenty feet in front of you, and you nearly screech in terror at her actions.

_ “Spinel!” _ You angrily whisper, getting over to her as fast as you can, grabbing for her hand again. “We need to get out of here, and fast. I have a feeling that we shouldn’t linger.”

She doesn’t answer you as you tug her hand, instead leaning into the broken injector on the bottom of the pile to inspect something. While she’s doing this, you’re looking at all the damaged injectors in this pile with increasing worry. Uh..

They all have similar marks like the one you saw back there, but you’re starting to realize that they all have something else in common. The middle of all of the chassis, where the diamond’s essence is, is torn into.

Spinel grabs onto one of the legs to move it, and before you can stop her, it shifts enough to slide down and causes a loud _ CRASH _ to echo out inside the room. It rings in your ears, and you forcefully pull Spinel up so she can't cause any further damage.

You're about to admonish her, when you hear something shift fifty or so yards away from you. It sounds a bit like large metal plates scraping against a surface. You feel vibrations in your feet.

Spinel looks at you, and the only thing you can feel is fear.


	14. Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made a bagel before posting this and it fell butter side down on the counter. not sure how much longer i can take this

You quickly grab her by the arm and pull her with you as you move over and behind another injector pile thirty or so feet to the left of the one you were currently at. Your mind is racing as fast as your heart as you place one hand over your chest to ground yourself, feeling your heart hammer underneath your fingertips. In your other hand you hold hers - and herself as closely to yourself as you can as a means to not let her wander.

The sound of metal scraping against rock echoes throughout the dome, causing small tremors through the ground and some debris to fall from the top of the ceiling in certain places. You can feel the vibrations in your teeth. What in the everloving  _ FUCK _ could that be? You’re trying to not panic, and it’s one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do in your life. Of course, the only person that could be indispensable to this entire situation is basically incapacitated and completely useless to you. This is just your fucking luck.

You pull in a deep breath to suck up your nerves, and take a small chance to peek around your makeshift cover and look in the direction of the noise. In the darkness, you scan around the large room looking for any sign of what could have been making those noises so you can assess the.. situation properly. 

You’re not seeing anything out of the ordinary, just piles of injectors, dirt, and an endless sea of murky, sparkly darkness. Spinel is tugging on your arm, so you turn to look back at her to tell her to hold on,  _ seriously are you kidding me right now _ \- and you almost miss the shift of movement on the ceiling. You freeze - heart pounding in your ears, eyes glued to the spot you thought you saw shift. 

You think at first your eyes are playing tricks on you, and that it might be some of the luminescent dust falling off the ceiling.. but a weird shift in light makes you think otherwise. Something.. something large slowly hangs down from the high ceiling of this room until it finally drops to the ground deliberately with a loud rumble that  _ shakes _ everything around you - and you slap a hand over Spinel’s mouth before anything comes out of it. You’re holding your breath as you watch this.. 

Oh you’re  _ much _ too terrified to deal with this basically alone. You’re not equipped to deal with this at all, and if there were some kind of higher being out there, watching you? You’d flip them off right now if you had the mental capacity for it. Your brain is having a hard time comprehending what it’s seeing, honestly. Light shimmers again, but there are so many piles of injectors out in the middle and you’re still on the outer edge of this room that you’re having to squint to really make out anything. 

Before you, maybe about fifty or so feet away is a dark shaded, large.. vaguely insect like creature. You don’t think it’s actually insect like at  _ all _ but it’s the most earth-like thing you could compare it to, considering the only thing you can actually see from it between all the pillars of garbage is a long moving midsection taller than you at full height as it drags itself against the dirt floor. It’s covered and dripping the same exact shit covering the walls, floors, and ceiling - leaving a fresh trail of whatever the hell is all over everything else.

It’s.. it’s fucking  _ huge. _

Your hand is trembling against Spinel, still holding it against her mouth. You do not dare to move. It’s basically physically impossible for you anyway because you’re too frozen in fear. You’re praying it cannot see or sense you or Spinel in your current location. 

You can hear more than  _ see _ anything as it’s dragging its body in loud  _ thunks _ coming from what you’re guessing is it’s legs, sending vibrations everywhere. It’s clearly secreting a glowing fluid as it moves to the direction of the pile of injectors that Spinel had made noise from earlier, a mere dozens of feet from you now. You still have no idea what the front half of it even looks like. 

Seconds that feel like minutes go by with the rumbling, and you feel your hand get disgustingly wet.

“Wha-” You pull your hand from her mouth briefly to see that she had licked it - goofy grin covering her face. You school your face into more of a stern expression, wiping some of the fear from it and lean into her space closely.

“Spinel, I  _ need _ you to shut the fuck up and stay as still as possible.” You whisper harshly, as quietly as you can muster. “Do you understand? Otherwise I’m gonna keep my hand on your mouth.” You look at her, waiting for the gem to nod any kind of acknowledgement before uncovering her mouth again. 

“What is  _ that? _ ” She practically slurs her words as she attempts to whisper, breath tickling your face, eyes brimming with curiosity as she tries to get a better look at that  _ thing. _

“I have no idea, but I’m starting to think one of your earlier guesses was right.” You quietly reply, taking a look around the other side and seeing a sharp pincher-like end to a tail drag behind a pile of injectors. What the fuck is this  _ thing.. and how big is it.. _

You watch it drag itself to where you and Spinel once were, coming around the side of another pile of junk - and it finally exposes the front of itself to where you can see it.

Your stomach drops in fear as your limbs freeze up.

It leans down on these angular, folding legs that are in front of several more, as it’s head  _ tears _ into the pile, grabbing a large rock from the bottom of it in what your guessing is its mouth. Spinel is utterly quiet as you stand there in terror, and a familiar noise starts to echo out around the walls of this cavernous hell hole.

A whirring noise. One you’ve heard before.

You see its head turn slightly, and you taste bile in your mouth. There are several segmented torso pieces in the front of this thing that’s just got a bunch of legs attached to it, and its long body trails behind it much like a centipede. You cannot count how many white eyes are on its hideous, marred head. Your heart cannot pump blood any faster as it’s all you can hear in your ears besides this horrible noise it’s making. It’s mouth is more  _ hole _ than anything, as you see mainly teeth as it grinds this large rock down to dust. 

Like a fucking  _ blender. _

Your brain stutters to comprehend what it’s seeing. Slowly.. the pieces start to fall together in place. You think you know  _ exactly _ what happened to all those missing gems on this planet.. You shudder, seeing gem dust on  _ your fucking clothes  _ \- and nearly vomit on the spot. Gems! It  _ ATE GEMS. _

Oh,  _ god _ this could be the end of Spinel too - your mind panicking already - you need to get the  _ FUCK _ out of here, and FAST. You were scared for your own life, but now you think you have to worry more about your companion beside you.

You don’t know what you were expecting to be down here, on this planet very far from home, but you weren’t expecting a fucking gem eater. Or to walk directly into its  _ lair.  _

As if it couldn’t be any more horrifying, it pushes itself back up after it’s finished with what was in it’s mouth - and it extends its torso and head into a height of over ten feet at the crown of its ugly head. Spinel gasps from beside you - you see it whip its face to your direction, rumbling sounding out all around you as its sharp legs turn to move the front of its body.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” You look at the idiot beside you, and grab her by the upper arm as you stumble - dropping your walking stick, dragging her with you as the gem eater turns it's attention to where Spinel made noise from. It starts to scuttle over, its legs moving disgustingly quick as it worms its way across the ground.

You manage to pull Spinel quickly around another pile several yards away, barely able to cut the corner fast enough for it to not see you. Spotting a small opening in the pile, you shove Spinel in the crevice and squeeze in right next to her, injector pieces digging into you from all sides.

Maybe about ten feet from you, you can hear it's legs making loud  _ thuds _ as it searches the area you were at previously, small vibrations at your feet. You hold your breath and look at Spinel, who's trying her hardest despite her altered state of mind to stick her head out to look at that thing outside where you're hiding. You're pressed up against her, her gem painfully pressing against your sternum - any other time than this, you'd be screaming at this kind of close proximity. 

You hear a weird clicking noise coming from the other side of the injector pile you're in. Spinel's pupils are drawn to yours, and you slam a hand over her mouth before she can kill you both. Your heartbeats are pounding so  _ loudly _ in your ears, and while your hands shake in fear you do your best to steady them. Panicking will not help you. Panicking might kill you, actually. 

Your inner monologue is mainly filled with _YOU'RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH DOWN HERE AND NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW _on repeat like a mantra. The clicking is clearly coming from the gem eater, and it's incredibly unsettling to hear the noises accompanied by the sounds of it dragging it's large, horrendous body. You're frozen in fear. Your eyes are locked with Spinel's in a silent plea for her to be as quiet and unmoving as possible.

_ Thump. Thump.  _

The clicking gets closer. The scent of sweet rot wafts around you.

You can't get yourself to stop shaking.

Despite not wanting to die, your mind settles on a single thought, and focuses on it. You.. you need to leave here, alive, and with Spinel. You know you don't really have much, sure Steven and the gems would be upset if you died, if they haven't already given up on finding you by now, but..

You want Spinel, so badly, to be able to experience a regular life. She's been through too much, and hasn't had the chance at any kind of happiness. You don't want her to die with you being the only one to know she  _ existed. _

It feels like ages before it moves on, going to check out another pile of who knows what as you hear the clicking move past you.

You let out your held breath in relief, and wait for it to continue to drag itself away.

You have a feeling the gem eater is probably blind. It definitely should have seen you two when you came in - neither of you had been tactful about being seen, and it was on the ceiling.. almost like it was waiting. You hear a couple more clicks, and you’re thinking it has to be some form of echolocation. This should make it easier to get out. In theory.

Once you think it's far away enough, you remove your hand from Spinel's mouth, and lean in close to whisper.

"I need you to be still, right here, for a couple seconds while I scout out an exit. Please just shut up and stand there." You try driving home the point with a stern face towards her. 

She opens her mouth and you slap your hand back over it.

"Spinel. I'm serious. Just don't move for a couple seconds, and I'll be right back." You whisper harshly at her, trying to put on a brave front for yourself. You don't need her sabotaging your plans just because she's stupid right now. She nods at you.

With the gem eater busy searching for you two many yards away, you squeeze out of your hiding place to attempt to find a way out of your potential graveyard. There are piles and piles of injectors as far as your eye can see, the luminescent glow of the cavern just barely emitting enough light for you to make out the outer edges of this room. Off in the far corner, you think you can spot an area that leads to a different tunnel. Which is the only other exit in this room beside where you came from, and you can't even go back to that because that's close to where the gem eater is currently searching for you.

The only thing between you and freedom is just a large, hungry, gem-eating monster currently stalking around for you.

No biggie.

You turn back around to squeeze into the crevice again, nearly scraping half your arm off in the process.

“Alright, here's the plan.” You whisper at her, and she turns her head to focus on you. There’s a bit of drool coming out the side of her mouth, and if there wasn’t the current problem at hand you’d find it almost stupidly endearing. “The only way out is all the way on the other side of this room.” You make sure to point in the direction you’re speaking of so she can kind of understand, but she’s just smiling stupidly at your face instead. “We’re gonna have to sneak over there as quickly as we can, okay? I need you to be able to follow me.”

“Sure thing, doll.” Spinel replies, grin never leaving her face. You stare at her.

“Don’t call me that. Take this seriously.” You say, knowing she’s only like this because she’s not right in the head currently.

“Whyyyy not? You’re pretty.” She blinks at you dumbly.

“Oh my fucking god, I’m covered in filth and dirt.” You sigh, and pray that this goes well. You ignore the heat rising on your face, and pull the ditsy gem by her arm and out of the hiding place you’re both in. 

You take a quick look around you in the murky darkness, peering past all the piles of injectors. You can hear the gem eater move a bit further from you in search, its clicks echoing out in the chamber. You grasp Spinel’s hand in yours and ignore your aching foot to dart out and around another large pile, gem in tow. You hear a couple more prominent clicks, and a crashing sound beyond you a bit further. 

It sounds like it’s pissed it can’t find you, and your heart beats wildly in your chest as you try to calm your anxiety to your best ability. 

Peering around the pile, you see half of it disappear behind another pile much further up, sharp pincer-like tail trailing behind it. Holy fuck, you weren’t expecting the thing to be so  _ large. _ It’s clearly longer than twenty feet. The sound of it dragging its body along, scraping against your ears plus the clicking is driving you insane in terror. You squeeze Spinel’s hand in yours to calm your nerves, and you feel her squeeze back.

She’s watching you like she’s almost.. studying you. Your eyes are tethered to hers for several moments before you tear them away. You have no idea what’s going on in her head right now, and you don’t have the time to figure it out. 

You tug her hand again, and try to make a bit more forward towards your exit. Your progress is painfully slow, but thankfully the gem eater seems to be distracted by something else. You hear another  _ crash _ , and more metal scraping against metal before that whirring noise echoes everywhere around you again.

You stumble a bit more further, and get about half way when Spinel stops in her tracks, halting you as well.

“Spinel?” You pull on her arm slightly. “Come  _ on _ , we’re almost there.” Your whisper comes out panicked and harsh, anxiety bubbling in your gut.

If Spinel hears you, she doesn't respond. Her face is turned alarmingly towards the sounds the gem eater is making.

“Spinel?” Your voice rises slightly in fear. “Spinel, we gotta get the fuck out of here right now. We can’t linger.” 

The gem takes a step forward, pulling you the opposite way of where you’re supposed to be heading. The pungent smell of rot grows thicker and you nearly feel like you’re asphyxiating. You hold back a gag as you pull on your friend's arm. 

“Spinel!” You tug on her arm harder, trying to pull her back as you dig your heels into the ground. “Spinel,  _ STOP.” _ You shout in alarm, and it echoes out all around you. 

You realize maybe a little too late of what you had just done. There are a couple beats of silence that are followed by  _ rumbling. _

“Oh, we need to  _ GO RIGHT NOW.” _ You say just as you hear it bellow out a roar, sound unlike anything you’ve ever heard before.

You yank on her hand - pulling her sharply to run with you as you make a dash for the exit. Your ankle screams in agony as you put your full weight on it, but you don’t exactly have a choice here. 

Chancing a look behind you, the gem eater screams again before you see it pop in between the piles of injectors. Panic fills you as you run, the ground shaking underneath you. It sounds so close, now. You are screaming inside your head.

You see the opening for the tunnel out in clear view, and there is daylight emitting from it. Hope fills you.

And then off to your left, you see the gem eater catch up to exactly where you’re headed. You almost don't manage to stop in time - Spinel slams into your side with an  _ oof _ , and it rears its hideous head to your direction, sliding in the dirt to stop in its tracks. It opens its mouth slightly, like a hole - and makes several clicking noises. A blanket of fear washes over you. Several of its eyes blink, head twitching to your exact location.

You realize that if you want out of here, you're probably going to have to fight. You need to think fast. You clear your throat.

“Hey, fuckface,” You say to the gem eater as it extends out its legs, standing to its full height twenty feet from you. It’s over twice as tall as yourself, and utterly terrifying. You pick up a rock at your feet. “Eat this, you piece of  _ shit!” _ You yell out, sounding so much more braver than you feel - and throw the rock right at the gem eater’s face.

You were trying to aim for its eyes, but the rock goes a little low and smacks against its segmented torso fucking comically, bouncing off like hail on a car.

“Fuck.” You say as you pull Spinel with you and dart to the side, having never let go of her hand, behind another pile of destroyed and eaten injectors. You drag her with you and you attempt to run in any direction far, far away from the thing behind you.

It screams that horrible cry again, and you hear its legs maneuvering towards your direction. Trying to form some half-assed plan in your head, you push Spinel hard - and she stumbles for a moment, looking at you. 

“GO!!!” You yell at her and turn away, hoping you can get the monster to follow  _ you _ if you split up. 

You get maybe fifteen feet into a sprint while you scream to make noise, and to your absolute horror, the rumbling of the gem eater heads after Spinel and you curse yourself as you make an abrupt turn back her direction and follow it. You do take note of the fact that it seemed to have had a hard time turning, lifting its body to break hard before falling onto its front legs and going after your gem companion. 

You shout for Spinel's attention as she seems immobilized by the monster's pungent smell again.

Luckily due to its inability to turn well, you manage to reach Spinel before  _ it _ does and you body slam into her, flinging her out of the way and screaming. The beast attempts to turn again, going after Spinel still. 

Thinking quick, albeit a bit stupidly for any kind of distraction - you reach into your pocket, pulling out your blade that you stole from the Spire and lunge for the gem eater’s side. You scream what you feel like is the most  _ pathetic _ battle cry - it slams its legs down to stop itself as it hears you, crashing headfirst into a giant pile of injectors. You put as much force into your hand as possible, slamming the blade against it’s hard carapace. Your blade doesn’t even chip it's hard outer shell, splitting into pieces as you almost tear your hand open.

_ “FUCK!!!”  _ You stumble as your ankle gives out and you fall onto your rear. 

It only hesitates a moment, and then scrambles to get itself unstuck from the pile - it makes horrendous noises as injectors fall down, crashing on it and next to it on the ground. You quickly get back up on your feet, using this distraction to get to Spinel as a plan forms in your mind. 

“Be fast and follow me.” You grab for her hand and pull her towards the nearest wall, keeping your exit in sight as you both run for it. 

You hear it cry out behind you, and your anxiety and fear spikes into overdrive. A few more crashes of broken injectors falling, and then you feel the rumble as it slams its legs into the ground, getting free of its prison.

You grab another rock off the ground, and pray that this works. You scream out again to make as much noise as possible, and hurl the rock in the general direction of the gem eater.

Unfortunately your plan works as you look behind you - its head whips to your direction, letting out another ear piercing roar and  _ charges straight for you _ . Panic wells inside you as it gets closer and closer, gaining speed with each step. The sound of its body dragging on rock hurts your ears, and your foot hurts so bad you’d tear it off if you could. 

Just before it reaches the two of you, you jump out of the way - pulling Spinel with you. Like you had hoped, the thing couldn't turn in time and runs right into the wall with a loud  _ BANG  _ that sends cracks up the side. Quite a few injectors fall from the piles around the room due to the sheer force of it.

You don’t even wait. Gripping Spinel’s hand tightly, you sprint for the exit as fast as your foot will let you. You hear its loud, angry cries, but you do not look back.

The exit is actually an exit out of here, much to your surprise, and horror. This tunnel is maybe only a hundred or so feet, and you can see the kindergarten beyond the end of this. You’re running at this point, foot shooting sharp pains up onto that half of your body. 

Just as you get outside and into the open air, the ground starts to rumble like a quake beneath you.

“WHAT IS GOING ON?!” You hear Spinel shout from beside you, gripping your hand like it’s the only thing clinging her to reality. You’re surprised and relieved she came to her senses so quickly. It’s pouring out, and the thunderous roar in your ears is either from the howling wind or from the gem eater. 

“OH THANK GOD YOU’RE BACK,” Your hair is whipping into your face, and you almost slip - Spinel and yourself running about thirty feet outside of the entrance and stopping suddenly when you realize there that giant drop into the ravine below, and you’re a mere three feet from falling to your death altogether. “AND I’LL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING LATER.”

Her eyes are boring into yours, full of bewilderment, rain pelting against her face. “We’re in the  _ kindergarten _ ? What’s-” 

There’s a roar, and you grasp Spinel’s arm to steady yourself from the heavy tremors under your feet. 

“WHAT THE  _ FUCK  _ IS THAT.” She says, in full blown panic as she whips her face to where the gem eater is coming from.

“I DON’T KNOW BUT WE CAN’T OUTRUN IT.” You yell, mind working in overdrive. It clearly only wants Spinel. You take one last glance at the cliff drop behind you.

You see it finally coming out of it’s entrance, disgusting legs and long body dragging behind it. The quakes it’s causing is straight up causing rocks to fall all around you, several smashing down a few feet off to your side.

“Y/N, WE NEED TO  _ GO! _ ” Spinel yanks on your arm in terror.

“WAIT.” You say, holding your ground more so than you’ve ever done in your life. You only have one shot at this.

The gem eater is twenty feet away. Your heart is pounding. Spinel looks at you in fear, ready to bolt.

“ _ Y/N- _ ”

You grab her by the face and kiss her, and time stops for a brief second. Her lips are cold from the rain.

And then with the rest of your strength, you slam your hands on her chest and shove her away - roaring loud in your ears - and you jump the opposite way with a  _ twist  _ of your ankle. 

It all happens  _ too fast _ as something slams into your leg, and you’re airborne for a second before your body slams back onto the sopping wet ground, and then you’re  _ sliding.  _

The gem eater shrieks along all the tremors, sounds of rock and metal clashing and colliding as it tries to stop itself from going off the cliff - you grasp the muddy soil all around you, failing to make a purchase on anything. You see its tail whip around out of the corner of your eye.

Spinel yells out for you.

Suddenly feeling white hot pain piercing your stomach, and then you’re being torn off the ground. You’re airborne again for just a second when you feel something grabbing your arm - the velocity of your fall nearly yanking your arm out of its socket. You hear the gem eater’s cries as it plummets below, heartbeats pounding in your eardrums.

Spinel pulls you back from what would be a long fall, and she’s screaming at you in a frenzy, gripping both of your upper arms - but all you’re hearing is white noise. 

You choke out a laugh of hysteria, and attempt to shrug free from her grasp to stand on your own. In your haze of adrenaline, you put your full weight on your foot - and nearly collapse, planting one of your hands on her for support. Your eyes glance down and see red. Too much red - you see blood pouring out of a plate-sized wound in your stomach and feel a wave of nausea immediately.

_ “-ELIEVE YOU’D DO THAT, Y/N, WHAT WERE YOU EVEN THINKING, THROWING YOURSELF IN HARMS WAY WHEN I-”  _ She stops herself and looks down to your wound, and the color drains from her face instantly. “Y/N-”

“Uh.” You interrupt her, swallowing to attempt to stop yourself from vomiting. “It’s fine.”

“No it’s not you  _ idiot _ ,” You can see the fear in her eyes. “There’s  _ so _ much blood here and I don't know what to  _ do,  _ you humans are so fragile-”

“Spinel, I just gotta stop the bleeding, shhhh.” You say, putting a hand over your bloody side, the warm blood oozing against your fingers. Your brain is working too hard in overdrive and you’re trying to not panic to make everything worse.

“STOP THE BLEEDI-  _ Y/N,  _ how exactly are we going to do that!?” She exclaims, shaking fists on her head like she’s about to tear her hair out. “YOU’RE LOSING SO MUCH BLOOD ALREADY!”

“I, uh,” You stumble with your words, feeling woozy. You need to do something - anything to stop the bleeding. You suddenly remember all that unused cloth up on the Spire. “I think I can make a staunch with those supplies from the Spire.”

“You  _ THINK?!” _

“Do you have any better ideas!?” You shield your eyes from the rain, even if you’re already fucking soaked. It’s pelting against you both.

“No,” She replies frettingly, bits of water soaked hair sticking to her face. “I’m fuckin’ useless here.”

“You’re going to have to carry me. I can’t walk on this leg,” You reply. Spinel bends down enough so she can easily give you a piggyback, and you hold on to her with a single arm - other hand gripping your wound, trying to keep any kind of pressure there at this point. You’ve only got your shirt sleeve to help. She holds you tightly, glancing at you like you’re made of glass and that she’s going to be the one to somehow break you.

“I’m gonna be as fast as I can okay?” She says, her worried, urgent tone playing at your heart pathetically. All you can do is nod. “We’ll talk about what happened back there later.”

You’re hoping she means the shit with the gem eater, and not that kiss back there as she takes off at a decent pace. The howling of the winds whip around you nearly deafeningly, and you can hear Spinel ream into you under her breath. Your brain wants to focus more on what happened with that kiss and not the increasingly worrying wound in your side.

She nearly slips on a rock - struggling to hold you for a moment, and you groan in agony as it jostles you. She cranes her neck to look at you in stressed worry.

“Y/N, I’m sorry-” 

“Just keep going.” You cut her off, head spinning. The blood loss is making you queasy.

She keeps going, and within a minute or two you’re out of the kindergarten, and you can see the Spire about a mile or two away. No biggie, it ain’t that far, you’re sure you can make it.

The terrain of the jungle is much rougher on you, and every step bumps you enough to make blood flow more freely. You think if you go on like this much longer you’ll bleed out before you get to the Spire.

“Spinel,” You clear your throat. She stops in place, and looks right at you.

“Yeah?” You hate seeing her face the way it looks right now.

“You’re going to have to go get the supplies for me.”

“What?” She replies in alarm, eyes wide. “Without you?!”

“Yeah. I’m bleeding too much to keep going like this.” You say as the rain pours against you at an angle with the wind. You’re in so much pain that you don’t even feel half of it anymore. She studies your face for a moment.

“Okay.” She says with a frown after a few seconds, like that was the most difficult decision she could ever make. “I’ll be so fast you won’t even realize I’m gone.”

“Get the cloth, needle, and thread up on that one floor I showed you. You know, the stuff in the crates.” You say, with a fair amount of difficulty.

“I can’t just set you down here.” She looks around anxiously, distress clear in her posture. You look around you for a moment, and then spot a little hill with a single tree on the peak next to a clearing a hundred or so feet away.

“Over there, Spinel.” You point, and she tightens her hold on your legs. She makes quick, painless work of getting you over there, and clears a spot against the trunk of the tree to set you down against.

Your back hits the tree, and another wave of pain flows over you enough to affect your face, and Spinel sees it clearly. You keep your hand on your injury, flares of pain lighting up your nerves.

“Don’t move. I’ll be back before you know it.” She says, gently, leaning into your space. 

“You really think I’m gonna just get up and waltz around?” You reply jokingly, and Spinel gives you an anxious look.

“Stupid, you know I’m just  _ saying _ ..”

“I know.” You cough, and it hurts you. You bite your tongue to deal with the worst of the pain. She’s looking at you like she doesn’t know what to do.

“I really don’t want to just leave you here.” She says shakily, looking at how much you’re covered in your own blood. 

“Well, it’s either that or you fly us over there.” You reply with a tinge of sarcasticness.

“You’re still sassing me even now, I can’t believe you.” You see the corner of her lip turn, but the rest of her face still looks grim.

“It’s in my blood.” You state.

She gives you a long look, the lines under her eyes strikingly bold, hair dripping with water. There are a series of emotions that pass through her face like she’s working up how to say something, and her face gets serious. 

“Um.. listen." 

“Whatever you’re going to say, save it for when you get back.” You interrupt her, and her eyes widen a bit.

“But-”

“Save it. I’ll see you again soon, I promise.” You say, and her eyes waver between yours uncertainly.

“Okay.” She says, eyes never leaving yours. She reaches out to give your hand a reassuring squeeze, and then turns away to leave.

She gets to the bottom of the hill and looks back at you for another moment, posture hesitant. And then after several seconds of what looks like her trying to convince herself, she turns and sprints away faster than you’ve ever seen her move.

You watch her run to the Spire long enough to see her disappear into the treeline completely, and then you really feel like you’re alone.

The tree you’re leaning against only kind of shelters you from the rain, as if that matters. Looking up, you can see some of the rain clouds clearing and it seems to be a late afternoon. You’re trying your best to remain conscious, but if you’re going to be honest with yourself you’re not sure how much longer you can. You’ve lost  _ way _ too much blood.

You.. you’re pretty sure you’re going to bleed out before Spinel gets back at this rate, you’re starting to feel sleepy and your eyes are getting heavy. 

Fuck. You never planned on telling her your feelings, but you wish you could’ve told her that she has worth far beyond her status as a gem. And that being stranded here for the last month on this planet might have sucked, but you were grateful that you met her regardless.

Minutes pass slowly as you blink in and out of consciousness. The wind dies down to nearly nothing, and the rain is now just a mist. It’s quiet all around you. Peaceful, even. 

You don’t know how long it’s been since she left. You hear trees rustling, and then a noise in the sky.

You blink your heavy eyelids, and when you open them again, you see something pink hovering in the sky that looks vaguely familiar. You can barely squint your eyes.

Your eyes slide close no matter how hard you try to keep them open, consciousness fading. You hear something land in the clearing next to your hill, a hundred or so yards away. 

It feels less painful, now. Your body. There’s a weightlessness to it. Almost like you’re floating.

You hear voices.  _ Frantic _ voices. 

You can’t seem to grasp why the voices are familiar as they get closer. You can’t muster the strength to open your eyes. 

You’re so  _ tired. _

The voices get louder, and there’s shouting you can’t exactly comprehend before you feel multiple hands on your body. Rushed, anxious words, and crying.

You’re being moved, carefully and quickly, and you feel like you have no strength over your body anymore.

You hear doors of a ship open, and the only thing you can think of in the last bits of your fading consciousness is Spinel.


	15. Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would say that i hate how much anguish i brought to many of you, but that would be a lie, probably

You’re floating.

Well, it seems like floating, for the most part, because you can’t really feel anything.

It's dark, and you can't see anything around you. You feel like you're drifting in your weightlessness, slowly, the warm, inky darkness all around is actually kind of calming.

You hear something.

It's a voice. Feminine, and familiar - you don't recognize it immediately. It's calling out to you, you think. You aren't really sure. You aren't really able to focus on it. 

Suddenly, there's light all around you and you're standing in a field you've never seen before. There's a single tree on a small hill about twenty feet in front of you, and you're surrounded by tall grass. 

Everything is.. pink. Huh. You're very confused.

"Wake up." You hear a voice say from behind you, distinct and clear as day.

You turn around, but there's nothing there. Just an endless field.

"Huh." You hear yourself saying out loud. 

You turn back around to the tree, and there's something large in front of you. You nearly scream from being startled, but manage to only make a tiny noise of surprise - muffling your mouth with your hand. 

A gentle, knowing chuckle erupts from the vaguely outlined pink figure in front of you.

"I didn't mean to startle you, I was only trying to get your attention." She says. You think you've heard this voice.. once or twice? You can't pinpoint it.

"Where am I?" You reply, feeling no threat from her.

" _ That _ isn't important."

"Why am I here? How am I here?" You ask, because these fields are endless, and you're having a hard time remembering what you were doing before this.

"You're here because someone desperately wanted you alive." The figure does not move.

"What does that mean?" You inquire, confused. “Am I dead?”

"It means you need to wake up. You  _ have _ been here a while." The voice replies, a curious sway to it. It's  _ so _ familiar, and yet you cannot grasp it.

"How do I wake up if I don't even know I'm asleep?" You look up to the head of the figure, outline blurry to your eyes.

"Like this, I think?" She giggles softly, tone almost.. motherly. 

"Like what?" You hear yourself say, and when you blink your eyes she's suddenly gone. 

There's no one in the field around you. 

There's just miles and miles of long, swaying grass as far as the eye can see.

You feel a pull in your stomach.

-

You wake up and open your eyes - immediately seeing there are several pairs of eyes peering down at you, gasps filling the room.

“You’re awake!” Steven shouts, tears in his eyes. “I was  _ so _ terrified you weren’t going to wake up.”

You feel bile rising in your throat. You need to vomit.

You get up from your position on the couch, and you can see that you’re back in Steven’s living room. You shrug off Garnet’s hand on your arm, and ignore the protesting voices in the room to run to the bathroom, slamming the door behind yourself and locking it. 

Running to the sink, you hurl mostly saliva into the basin for a solid minute or two as you leave the water in the sink running. Your head is blank, as you’re mainly trying to get your insides to stop convulsing. You watch the water pour down the drain. Your hands are shaking. You cup some of the cold water in your hands and splash it on your face - it helps, a little. You grab the towel hung up on the rack beside you to dry your face, and when you open your eyes, the reflection staring back at you in the medicine cabinet makes your stomach drop.

You.. you’re pink.

Your face, your hair, your skin - all of it, is pink. 

The scream that comes out of you is pretty embarrassing, you won’t lie. There’s frantic knocking on the bathroom door.

“Y/N, are you  _ okay!?” _ Steven yells out from beyond the thin door, and you can hear him rattle and shake the doorknob. Thank fuck you locked it.

“DO I LOOK OKAY?!” You scream back, frozen in place as you stare at your reflection.

“...can I come in?” You hear him reply in a rushed, worried tone.

_ “God no, _ I need some time.” You can’t stop looking at the mirror. It’s so  _ strange.  _ There’s a fairly large scar running from your forehead to down the side of your face near your hairline that you don’t remember having?

“I’ll be out here when you’re ready then, okay? We’re all here.”

“Huuuuuuuuurgh.” Is all you can reply, rubbing at your eyes and blinking, but your reflection doesn’t change. You’re not dreaming. You hear his footsteps walking away, and you turn the faucet off while you gather your thoughts.

You died. Somehow.

You’re having a hard time remembering _ how _ you died. It’s kind of too much to think about right now, if you’re honest with yourself. You’ll unpack that later.

You feel like there is something wrong with your brain. Everything’s a bit fuzzy. The reflection that stares back at you looks rather filthy, honestly, so you go over to the shower to turn the water on. Might as well keep your hands busy. 

You start to pull your shirt off when you realize you don’t have a change of clothes. What you’re wearing is torn to shreds and so dirty, but you don’t know why. What were you doing before?

Regardless, you walk back over to the door to unlock it, and open it just a crack.

“Steven, could you give me a change of clothes?” You half yell out into the other room, and close the door gently again in wait. You lean against the door and space out as you watch the bathroom fill with steam from the shower, the sound of running water the only thing your brain can focus on.

A minute or two later, there’s a knock on the door. You move from your leaning position to open the door a few inches, seeing Steven’s face there.

“Here.” He holds out a fresh pair of pants and a t-shirt that are nicely folded for you. Must’ve been Pearl. His eyes roam your face in concern, eyebrows furrowing. “Take your time. We can talk after this when you’re ready.”

“Thanks.” You reply, albeit a bit blankly. You feel like you’re a bit in a dissociative state that you’re unable to explain. You take the pile of clothes from his open palm.

“Do you want your cell phone?” He asks, pulling it out of his pocket to offer you. You nod, and take it from him.

“Appreciate it.” You say, and he watches your face for a brief second, eyes flickering between yours. And then he closes the door softly with a click.

You lock it.

You walk over to the sink, leaving your phone on the counter without a second thought. You place your clean clothes on the toilet lid, and take your clothes off, starting with your pants. They’re utterly filthy and torn in a few places, what the hell? You toss them over by the garbage can near the toilet. No point in keeping those.

You take off your shirt, and notice something weird.

There’s a.. scar on your stomach. It’s fairly large, but it’s healed. You don’t remember getting this at all. You’re so fucking confused right now. 

You refuse to put any more thought into it, as it would be counterproductive anyway. You take the rest of your underwear off, and toss everything into a pile by the garbage can. None of it is salvageable. What the fuck were you doing?

You pull the shower curtain back, letting a cloud of steam wash over you. You get in one foot at a time, the bottom of this tub is missing the grip mat for some reason and you’d prefer not to fall on your ass. Once you’re underneath the stream, your shoulders sag in relaxation as the hot water runs down your body. You feel like you haven’t taken a shower in  _ ages _ .

You grab the shampoo, scrubbing your hair down and rinsing that out. You pour way too much conditioner into your hand and figure  _ fuck it _ , and slather your hair in that. You stand there for a moment, watching suds wash down the drain in a swirl.

You space out for a while. You’re not sure how long.

You take your time rinsing your hair of the conditioner. You notice dirt underneath your fingernails, when you normally keep them pretty clean. What the hell. You move to grab the bar of soap on the little shelf on your left, but misjudge a footstep - you slip, hands knocking all the bottles down to the tub in a loud  _ crash _ as you hit your head on the side of the tub.

_ “Y/N!? ARE YOU OKAY IN THERE?”  _ You hear Amethyst shout from outside the door.

“Peachy!” You yell back monotonously, seeing stars and groaning. 

You sit up groaning, your head spinning. Hot water is pouring on you, running down your face and shoulders. 

Suddenly you remember the petrified look Spinel gave you before you kissed her and pushed her away, and you freeze. Your breathing picks up, and you slam a hand over your mouth as you feel yourself retch again.

Spinel.

Oh my god. Oh  _ my god. _

You vomit again, violently this time. Nothing comes up, but your body convulses and makes you puke up bile, acid burning the inside of your throat. The hot water sprays down on you as you shake uncontrollably.

You remember everything. The gem eater, the tunnels, bleeding, dying. Spinel.

You’re back on Earth, and she isn’t here. You bite your tongue, holding back more retching that your body wants to torture you with.

You’re alive and off that fucking planet somehow, and Spinel isn’t here. 

With shaking hands, you finish washing your body as you try to keep your crumbling composure. You turn off the water, and grab for the towel next to you. You let your hands do the work on autopilot as you try to fend off the impending breakdown.

You put your clothes on, mind spinning with thoughts about how Spinel either thinks you’re dead, or worse, that you  _ abandoned _ her there. You try not to cry thinking about it. You remember sitting at that tree, but everything after that is a bit fuzzy. It hurts to think about Spinel rushing back to you with what she thinks is life saving materials - just for you to be gone and nowhere to be found. Unless she saw the ship coming down? God that’s -  _ that’s worse -  _ you think, her sprinting back to you desperately, and seeing the ship fly away.

She  _ knows _ you wouldn’t leave her.

Right? 

You’re going back for her. That isn’t even a question. You’re terrified of what she’s even  _ thinking _ about right now. You just hope you can easily convince the gems and Steven that everything that happened a month ago when she took you - it’s different, she’s different, and not a threat anymore. You towel dry your hair quickly, and once you put the towel back on the rack you can hear strained, hushed whispering beyond the bathroom door.

You hear your name being spoken, and quietly you walk over to the door to press your ear against it.

“ - but, she’s-”

“- _ Golgotha, _ Garnet! She was on  _ GOLGOTHA. I’m ASTONISHED she lasted at all there considering she’s human and-”  _ Pearl hisses out, and you can hear someone clanking pots and pans in the kitchen.

“What’s Golgotha!?” You hear Amethyst frustratedly huff out, and a  _ ‘SSHHHH’ _ coming from Pearl. “You guys never tell me  _ anything!” _

“You don’t know because it was a colony that failed before you even  _ existed, _ Amethyst!” 

“How did Spinel warp there?” You hear Garnet wonder out loud, concern in her voice. “I was pretty sure they stopped all possible travel to that place.”

Your eyes widen at the sound of Spinel’s name being spoken. They know who she is? They  _ know Spinel!?  _ Then maybe - 

“She had to have bypassed-”

“She wouldn’t have-”

“How did a colony  _ FAIL?” _ Amethyst blurts out, cutting everyone off.

“Will you  _ keep your voice down!?” _ Pearl hisses out angrily. “It failed because a bunch of gems disappeared, and resources went missing. They didn’t want to take any chances on a dying planet anyway so they packed up and left.” 

“Yellow forbade anyone from going back to it. She even went as far to turn off the warp pad access.” Garnet says quietly.

“None of that matters, guys. She’s home safe, and that’s what counts.” Steven speaks up from the kitchen. “I just.. don’t know how to approach her about-”

“Her dying?”

_ “Amethyst!”  _ Pearl interjects, and you can hear the frustration in her voice.

“Yeah. I. I failed her. It should’ve been  _ me _ guys. Then she wouldn’t have had to deal with Spinel, and she wouldn’t have-”

“Steven, we’ve been trying to tell you all day that  _ it’s not your fault, buddy!  _ Y/N  _ knew _ what she was doing when she put herself in danger, you know how she is! Nothing would have convinced her otherwise!” Amethyst yells out at him.

“If only we were a little  _ faster _ getting to her, ugh, I should’ve thought about our keychains sooner! Minutes could’ve changed everything!”

“It wouldn’t have changed the outcome.” Garnet says. “We got to her as fast as we could.”

“I’m surprised at how well she fought off Spinel, considering it took several hours to figure out where she was and to even  _ get _ to her.” Pearl mentions offhandedly.

Your stomach drops.

What? Hours?

“She’s resilient. You taught her well.” 

What does she mean,  _ hours?  _ That literally makes no sense.

“She shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. Spinel wouldn’t have been able to kill me anyway, and I could’ve talked her out of whatever she was feeling,” Steven hisses out angrily. “I don’t know where she was when we found Y/N and picked her up, or if she managed to poof her, but if I had seen her after the damaged she did to Y/N, I don’t know if I could’ve held back-”

Oh my god, they think  _ Spinel _ tried to kill you. Your stomach fills with dread on top of the massive amounts of confusion you feel.

“Steven chill, she’s home and safe.” Amethyst says. “Hopefully this is the last gem that tries to-”

Unable to deal with any of this, you grab for the door handle, swinging the door open wide to stare at the gems standing in the living room. Steven’s in the kitchen with a pan in his hands. 

They’re all staring at you like they’ve just seen a ghost - minus Garnet, of course.

Steven almost drops his pan. “Y/N-”

“What do you mean it only took a couple hours for you to rescue me?” You say, voice as shaky as your sanity levels.

They all just stand there in silence, and you see Pearl’s wide eyes turn to Garnet and then trail back to you. The quietness around the living room is palpable.

“Y/N, I know this is a lot to take in..” Pearl stares at you like you’re about to keel over. 

“No, that literally makes no fucking sense.” You say, feeling yourself close to hyperventilation. “I get that I  _ died.” _

“You’ve been through a lot today dude, I think you should sit down and rest.” Even Amethyst looks concerned.

“I’m  _ fine.” _ You stare at all of them. “How long did it take for you to come get me?”

“I know that space has no concept of day and night, but it hasn’t been  _ that _ long.” Amethyst says bluntly. 

“You haven’t checked your phone, Y/N?” Steven asks, confused. “I know we’re normally faster than this, but it hasn’t been that long. Why are you so concerned with the time right now?”

“What?” You didn’t think of that. Ignoring the rest of what he said to quickly scramble for the phone you put into your jeans pocket. You open your lock screen, and what you see makes you drop your phone onto the ground with a  _ clatter. _

“Y/N?” You hear Steven say.

You’re frozen in shock. 

_ That makes no sense. _

Somehow. Somehow - the date displayed on your lock screen is just a day after Spinel had taken you.

“Is this a prank?” You laugh, once, dryly. You pick your phone up off the ground. “This isn’t funny.”

Steven’s eyebrows furrow worryingly. “No, why would we-”

“Then why have only a couple hours passed? I was there for  _ weeks.” _ You interrupt him.

They all look at you like you’ve grown another head.

“Y/N. You’ve been through a lot - I think something must’ve-”

_ “NO.”  _ You yell out. You’re close to insanity. “STEVEN, WEEKS PASSED WHILE I WAS THERE.” 

Your voice echoes out all throughout the living room, bouncing off the walls as they all look at you like you’re absolutely nuts. Steven sets the pan down and walks over to you, but Garnet puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“I think you need to sleep, because you sound crazy right now.” Amethyst says.

“I’M NOT-” Your fingers dig into your scalp, you’re close to ripping your hair out in frustration. You’re not insane, you lived every singl- wait a second. Your scar. You quickly point to the scar Spinel gave you when she first arrived. “THIS! REMEMBER THIS? SPINEL HIT ME WITH HER SCYTHE? AND IT’S COMPLETELY HEALED NOW.”

“Er, since I revived you, it closed all your wounds.” Steven stares at you. “Are you su-”

“I,” Your face drops. They can’t  _ not  _ believe you. “My nails? They’re longer, and I-” You cut yourself off, feeling your brain stutter from overuse.

“Y/N.” Pearl says, and you look over to her perplexed face. “You say you were there for  _ weeks?  _ That does explain the condition you were in when we got to you, even if-.” 

“How did you  _ survive _ for weeks!?” Amethyst interjects. “When we saw you earlier, Spinel had you by the THROAT.”

“Yeah she initially brought me there as bait to kill Steven, but she didn’t try to  _ kill _ me.” You say as you try to control your breathing. 

“Hold on a second.” Pearl makes a pointed face and pulls a datapad out of her gem, typing on it rapidly.

“She  _ didn’t _ try to kill you?” Steven rubs at his brow, confused. “Then why were you bleeding out when we found you?!”

“No, that’s what I’ve been trying to say, there was a whole fuckload of shit that went on that hell hole of a  _ planet!!!”  _ You spit out.

“She might be right, actually.” Pearl speaks up, quickly tapping on the glowing screen in front of her. She zooms into some kind of planetary chart from what you can see. “Golgotha has the trajectory to be running at a much faster time. The red giant it’s orbiting is-”

The rest of her words fall on deaf ears as your mind goes blank and you unintentionally freeze up. Spinel is still there. You feel like you’re about to unravel.

“I-I need to go back.” You choke out. “How long has it been since you picked me up?”

“Y/N, you’re insane if you think-”

“SHE’S STILL THERE, ALL ALONE, AND PROBABLY THINKS I’M DEAD.” You cry out. “CALL ME INSANE ALL YOU WANT BUT I’M NOT  _ LEAVING _ HER THERE.”

“Y/N-” 

“If you won’t take me then I’ll steal Lars’ ship, and get there myself.” You stare at them.

Steven visibly deflates.

“Can we maybe talk about what happened to you first? You’re not-”

“Every minute I waste here is hours for her.” You cut him off. “How long was I out exactly? How long has it been since you rescued me?

“You were out for several hours, since this afternoon..” Pearl says. You bite the tears threatening to spill from your eyes. 

“Great, so it’s been weeks for her already.” You nod your head, feeling a couple tears roll down your cheek. You wipe them away quickly. “Let’s go. I’ll tell you guys what I’ve been doing all this time on the way.”

“But-”

You turn to look at Steven, and his eyes meet yours. You think he can read your expressions enough by now to know the state of your emotions.

“Do you trust me?” You ask him. His eyes wavering between yours, a silent understanding passes.

He gives you a curt nod.

“Let’s go.”

-

Once you get onto Pink’s ship, Pearl reroutes the coordinates back to the planet you just came from. By the time you get there, it will be over a month and a half since Spinel’s seen you.

You try not to think about the possibilities of what she’s doing without you. You are so anxious that the nausea in the pit of your stomach constantly threatens to make you hurl. 

Steven has been watching you for a while now, and he holds out one of his hands. You try not to cry when you see his open palm, and you take it. It used to be something you did when he was in distress, and now he’s doing it for you. It gives you brief amounts of comfort. You love him dearly.

“So, let’s just start from the beginning.” Steven clears his throat. “When we last saw you, you were taken.”

“Yeah.” You focus your eyes on the floor, and try to steady out your breathing. If it weren’t for Steven holding your hand, you’d be pacing right now. “As I said, she really only wanted me as bait. And even that didn’t really last long, considering I think I screamed at her enough for her to want to get rid of me.. You called that planet Golgotha, right?”

“That’s correct.” Pearl speaks up. “It was one of Yellow’s old colonies.”

“Yeah, I know.” You say.

“You knew? How?” Pearl replies, perplexed. 

“I’ll get to that in a minute. Anyway,” You take a breath. “Golgotha sucks, it’s hot as shit there and it took me a while to find food, even. I hated Spinel, at first. She wasn’t helpful, and honestly I wanted her dead after what she tried doing to Steven.” You feel Steven squeeze your hand. “But we came to a truce eventually, to try to get off the planet after she destroyed the warp pad. And then I learned of her past, and well, things went a little differently after that.”

You look up from staring at the floor, and Pearl gives you a face.

“Spinel was made to be Pink’s best friend.” You hear the concern in her voice. “When I knew her, she was completely different.”

“Yeah, and Pink  _ left her in a garden for six thousand years, Pearl.  _ Anyone would have issues after that.” They all look at you like they’re not the least bit surprised.

“Mom left her for six thousand years?” Steven looks at you, his eyebrows furrowing in concern. “No wonder you’ve been this distraught about leaving her.”

“And I haven’t even told you the rest.” You sigh. “We found a Spire, and the kindergarten there that the gems abandoned. It was.. so fucked up.”

“What do you mean?” Amethyst implores, crossing her arms over her chest. “Didn’t they just leave it?”

“Do you guys know exactly of what happened on Golgotha?” You turn to face Pearl.

“Other than it being a failed colony? No. The data extracted from them was incomplete.” She says, putting a thumb to her lip in consideration.

“Then it’s just Spinel and I who really know what went on.” 

“What do you mean?” Steven asks, rubbing your hand with his thumb. You find his touch very comforting.

“It was a failed colony because of the gem eater.” You say, and all of them look at you apprehensively besides Garnet. Her face is almost comically blank.

“What..” Pearl squints at you as she trails off, face brimming with questions. 

“So, hold on, let me make this clear.” You cough into your hand, clearing your throat. “Considering everything I’ve been through the last day, I’ve got the full picture. I don’t know how, but where they placed the kindergarten, there was a.. being already there.”

“A being?” Amethyst interrupts.

“I don’t know how to describe that thing, because I don’t know what it looked like prior to it draining all the injectors of the diamond’s essence to consume.”

“It  _ WHAT?”  _ Pearl drops her hand from her mouth in shock. “How could it-”

“I don’t know, honestly. All I know is that between what Spinel and I witnessed, and the incomplete data logs inside the Spire, that’s what I pieced together. Anyway. We learned that over a hundred gems went missing, and we also found multiple tunnels that all ended up being connected to the kindergarten, where this thing lived.” 

“Of all planets she could’ve taken you, she had to take you to that one?” Amethyst comments, adjusting her stance. 

“You’re telling me. That was a source of many of mine and Spinel’s arguments.” 

“It sounds like you two became friends.” Garnet speaks up, and for some reason you get the feeling she can see right through you. You swallow all thoughts of potential implications.

“Something like that.” You ignore the way saying that makes you feel strange. “I think if it wasn’t for her, I probably would have died on that planet. Even if she was the one to bring me there in the first place, she still.. Anyway. I fell into one of those tunnels, where she eventually found me. We tried finding our way out, but instead ended up in it’s fucking lair. The gem eater had some kind of pheromone I’m guessing, because it smelt like shit and affected Spinel really weirdly. Makes sense that it lured all those gems into their death. I basically had to fight the thing off myself, because it wanted Spinel so badly.”

“Is that how you got that wound when we found you?” Amethyst asks, pointing at your stomach.

“Yeah.” You reply, placing your other hand that’s not holding Steven’s on your stomach as if you can still feel the gaping wound still. You had no time to really deal with any of that, and honestly, the current state of your psyche can’t really unpack it anyway. Dying? Ayy no problem.

“If Spinel wasn’t the one to hurt you, why was she nowhere near you when we came to pick you up?” Steven looks over to you, confusion in his eyes.

“I had her set me down so she could go grab supplies for me to do a rough patch job on my injury. As I said.. we were there for a couple weeks. I didn’t know if you guys were even coming for me, at that point.. I just didn’t want to die there.” You trail off. Steven’s still looking at you.

“Y/N, I’m sorry that it ended up that way, and that you had to go through that. We’re glad you’re still with us.” Garnet speaks up from the side, tone apologetic.

“I wouldn’t have been alive if it weren’t for Spinel.” 

“You wouldn’t have been in harm’s way if it weren’t for me.” Steven says, looking guilty. You tug on his hand to look at you.

“I would do it all over again so you’d never have to experience what I did.” You look him in the eyes, pleading for him to understand this.

“Y/N..”

“Besides, it wasn’t all that bad. I gained a new friend.” You give him a small, wry smile, but your heart isn’t in it. You’re dreadfully terrified of what happens when you get back to Golgotha.

“When all of this is said and done, I’d like to talk more with you on what you experienced.” Pearl taps on the console in front of her, entering a few commands that you don’t care to pay attention to. “I’d like some clarity on a few things.”

“Yeah, just let me sleep for a week.” You reply, and Amethyst snorts.

“Ah, good ‘ol Y/N is back to her old habits pronto.” She puts her hands behind her head in a show of ease.

“Hey, I deserve it. You sleep on leaf piles and musty tarps for a month, and see how  _ you _ feel about it.” You squint your eyes at her, and she laughs.

“We’ll be on the surface in less than an hour.” Pearl taps the screen a couple more times. “Where would you like us to land?”

You think you could spend a while wondering where Spinel could be on the surface. But you know her better than that by now.

“As close to the Spire as possible.” You hear yourself say.

-

Once the ship lands on the planet and the doors  _ swoosh _ open, you breathe in the air of the jungle you didn’t miss whatsoever. It’s night, and the cold has already set in making your breath appear in front of you. The four of them - the gems and Steven, step out with you. The Spire’s about a mile away, as this is the closest clearing to it that she ship could land on.

You turn to them.

“I was wondering if I could go alone, actually.” You say to them, hesitantly.

“Why? What if something happens to you? We need to-” Pearl stops as Steven puts his hand up, cutting her off.

“Can I talk to you? Just for a second.” He says, grabbing you by the elbow and leading you gently about two dozen feet away from the others. You can see the worry in his eyes. 

“What?” You ask. “I don’t want to waste any more time.”

“I know, I’m just worried..” His tone implies a lot of concern, and honestly you don’t know what you’d do without his presence in your life. He’s irreplaceable. “What I saw with her..”

“I need you to trust my judgement, Steven. You of all people know that everyone deserves a chance to improve, to be better.” You give him a look, and his eyes waver between yours.

“I  _ do _ trust you, it’s just.. I just got you back.”

“I’ll be fine. The only threat that was on this planet is already dead. And I.. I made a promise to her.” You sigh and grab his hand, staring at his palm on yours. “I’ll be back before you know it. Keep the ship warm for me.”

He shares a look with you for several long seconds, and then nods.

“Be safe.”

-

You’re not going to lie when you say that once you got out of view of them and into the line of trees, you started to break out into a sprint, and kept running all the way to the Spire with minimal breathing breaks. It takes you probably only a little over five minutes to get there, and you’re out of breath by the time you get to the doors. 

It’s a little alarming to see that the Spire doors aren’t even there. They’re ripped off completely, actually. You are scared and anxious of what you’ll find inside.

You step inside, and it’s pretty dark. There are leaves strewn everywhere, but nothing else looks out of place. 

Spinel isn’t here.

You look to the staircase, finding it intact. Your legs work on autopilot, walking up every floor like you’ve done many times before, and this is no different. Passing by the level with the supplies you had told her to grab, you’re seeing several crates are smashed open.

You hope your gut feeling is right. It hasn’t failed you yet.

The closer to the top, the more nervous you get. What if she isn’t there? Where else could she go? She couldn’t have gone back down into the tunnels - that would make little sense. Two floors to go. You feel your hands start to shake in quiet fear.

You haven’t had a lot of time to think about any of the ‘what if’s’. You’ve been consumed mainly with thoughts of getting back to her. You reach the floor underneath the top one, and before you get to the other staircase, you can hear the wind much more loudly than before. Getting closer to it, and taking a couple steps up - you realize that the entire top of the rest of this Spire is blown off. Or torn off.

Two steps. Three steps. You swallow nervously. You can’t seem to steady your erratic breathing. You can see the moons glowing against the stone of the Spire. Reaching the top of the stairs, you misstep and trip on the top edge of the stair - falling to your knee and catching yourself with your hand.

You hear movement ten feet in front of you, and you look up, frozen in place.

Your eyes meet Spinel’s.

“..you’re alive?” The voice you want to hear most says, and she looks at you like you’re the last person she expected to see.


	16. Sixteen

Running down the steep hill, your feet nearly slip on the wet grass as you slide in place - stopping with merely just your heels. You take a breath, turning around one last time to the person you left sitting against the single tree on the hilltop. Looking at her, you feel.. immense hesitation to leave her up there, all alone.

The rain pelts you from an angle, wind howling loudly and filling your senses. She doesn’t move, and you can see her faintly looking at you from over there. Water drips down your face. You don’t care. She looks so small and fragile, unlike you’ve ever seen her before. You’re so used to her being abrasive and stubborn, and to see her like this makes you scared and anxious. After another second you force yourself to tear your eyes away, and it takes every fiber in your being to leave her. 

Your feelings in this don’t matter though, and she needs you. Desperately.

You break out into a sprint, and run as fast as you can to the line of trees out beyond you. It doesn’t take you long at all to get past them, and you try to find the clearest path through the jungle trees to the Spire. 

_ Please hold on, for just a little longer. _

Your thoughts are plagued with anxiety. A low hanging tree branch  _ whips _ across your face as you run past, but you don’t care. 

By the time you get to the Spire that’s towering ahead, the rain eases up a little and the wind is dying down. You run up to the doors, feet sliding on the mud, and pound your fist on the wall - panel opening up in front of you. You move to stand in front of the door’s access panel, letting it scan your gem, but it gives you an error noise with a red alert.

“Are ya’ fucking  _ kidding me, _ come ON.” You hear yourself growl out in frustration, slapping your fist against the wall as you let it scan your gem for a second time. You notice your glove is covered in her blood, and look away from the splotches of red against the pink.

It gives you another error.

“I don’t have  _ time _ for this.” You say as you ball up your fist, stress and anxiety fueling your actions - and punch the panel’s display screen with a loud  _ crunch.  _

It fizzles, a bit of electrical smoke pouring out from the cracks. The door still doesn’t open. 

_ “FUCK!!”  _ You yell out, nearly about to scream. You quickly expand your fist to be the size of a boulder, and smash it against the door enough times for it to bend - creating a hole for your hand to slip through. You grab the edge of the door panel and yank as hard as you can,  _ ripping  _ it from its casing completely and throwing it off to the side.

You bolt inside, running to the staircase and taking several at a time. You run faster than you have ever run in your life up these stairs, stumbling several times, but your hands work fast at catching you. Anxiety propels you forward - and before you know it, you’re up on the seventh floor where the crates reside.

You don’t even hesitate smashing them open, filtering through all the pieces of splintered wood to grab a bundle of cloth - and placing it underneath your arm. You make sure you grab the needles, blades and thread, not caring to really account for how much you’re taking as you put them inside your gem for safekeeping. You can’t lose these.

Making sure you have enough cloth, you run back down the stairs at lightning speed.

_ Please be okay. PLEASE be okay. _

Like a mantra, these are the only thoughts running through your mind as you race forward. Time seems to go by pretty slowly, your limbs moving as fast as they can to get back down to the bottom of the Spire.

Once you’re at the base of the tower you storm out of the entry and past the door you ripped off. Tightening your grip on the cloth in your arms, you break out into a sprint again back to the hill you left her on. Your mind is running miles a second, and you’re scared to death of the possibilities of what lies ahead.

You haven’t really had the chance to think about all the ‘what if’s’, and you refuse to let yourself dwell on those kinds of thoughts any longer. 

You see the treeline up ahead of you, and sigh a breath of relief. You’re running, letting your legs carry you quickly to your destination. You see the hill up ahead, and yell out a  _ “I’m back! Sorry I took so long, I’ve got all the -”  _ and stopping when you’re within eyesight - you realize something is terribly wrong. 

You stop in your tracks, looking at the base of the tree a mere twenty feet in front of yourself.

She.. she isn’t there.

Dread and panic bubbles up inside you, and you drop the cloth you’re holding to run to the trunk of the tree. Wind picks up again, surging around you - and she isn’t there.  _ She isn’t there.  _

You look around the tree, and find nothing. No sign of her, except for the blood smeared against the trunk. Your breathing picks up in fear, and you whip your head around as the rain starts to get heavy again. She’s nowhere. Like - where could she have gone? You. You weren’t gone  _ that long? She couldn’t have - _

You call out for her against the wind, hearing nothing but the rustling of trees. 

“Where  _ are _ you? I was just  _ here,”  _ Your hands start to shake in anxiety, and you ball your fists as you feel tears forming against your will. 

Spinning around, you run a couple feet to the nearest line of trees shouting out for her. You wipe away the wet hair that wants to cling to the side of your face, and hear a  _ snap _ nearby, like someone is walking towards you, and you feel relief.

“Y/N!?” You shout as you turn around.  _ “I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE OKA-” _

You realize there’s nothing around you but yourself. Looking down, you see that you managed to step on a piece of wood - it’s in several pieces beneath your shoe.

You feel some kind of empty weight settle into your stomach, panic taking permanent resident inside your chest.

“No..  _ was I not-” _ You cut yourself off with a choke, feeling the hot tears roll down your cheeks. She can’t- she couldn’t have just  _ disappeared. _ Where the fuck could she have gone?  _ Where _ could she go? You don’t see a trail of blood anywhere - even though it’s raining, there would have been SOME indication that she  _ went _ anywhere.

You spin around, looking everywhere around you for some kind of sign. She  _ has _ to be here somewhere. There’s no doubt about it, because  _ nothing _ else makes any kind of sense whatsoever. You wipe the tears and rain off your face, putting on a forced look of determination and swallowing your dread. 

You  _ will _ find her.

-

Hours pass, the rain has stopped long ago, and the crisp night air hovers around you in a thick layer of fog. 

You still haven’t found her yet.

You haven’t stopped, and you aren’t planning to until you find her. Your heart is heavy and your head is filled with rapidly declining hope, but you won’t give up.

You continue searching.

-

Five days pass and you haven’t gotten an hour of sleep, you’re utterly  _ exhausted, _ and you still can’t find the one person you’d spend another six thousand years waiting for - just to see her face one more time. You can’t stop thinking about how she looked when you last left her, or the fact that she  _ promised _ she’d see you again. 

Gems don’t need sleep. They can get tired, but sleeping was never a necessary function for them. You hadn’t really tried it until you came here, and now you find yourself unable to even sleep on your own. Not that you’d admit that out loud, it’s just - you tried to sleep a couple nights ago with failure, laying down on the tarps - only for when you close your eyes, you’re plagued with images of her looking at you with a badly-masked grimace. Trying to play off the hole in her stomach as  _ not a big deal,  _ as her blood drips everywhere _ . _ So you’ve mainly spent your time wandering the jungle in the areas where you last saw her, with no luck and zero clues to where she could’ve gone. 

You don’t let the possible reality of the situation set in.

-

You’re pretty sure it’s like, day fifteen or sixteen, with no sign of her for sure whatsoever. You decide you’re going to stop searching for now, and give yourself a break. You go back to stay at the Spire, because if she miraculously shows up at this point, she knows where to find you.

You try not to dwell on any regrets you might’ve had, like what you had wanted to say to her before leaving her at that tree. Or asking why she had kissed you back in that moment. You can’t stop thinking about it.

You heavily consider seeing if it’s possible to make yourself sleep for days at a time, but forego that in favor of just sitting up at the top of the tower in wait. You won’t lie that you might’ve had a moment of weakness that you’re not proud of - you smashed the top of the rest of the Spire off at the ninth floor - but it’s not as if there was anyone here to witness you.

You wish there was, though.

-

Another week or two passes of you sitting up on the Spire, you’re not too sure honestly, you stopped counting a while ago. The days never really mattered anyway. You’ve spent much longer waiting on someone else.

It’s kind of funny actually.

You hear yourself laughing, even if you have no one to share it with, and find yourself crying again. You attempt to stop yourself - choking on a sob, but realize it doesn’t matter anyway. 

You’re the only one here.

It’s the same as it’s always been.

-

You find yourself wondering if you should get up and go searching for her again, but your body tells you just lay here and stare at the stars indefinitely instead.

You thought that maybe, just maybe you were going to get off this planet with Y/N somehow. You feel so, so utterly stupid to think that after everything you’ve put her through, that you could’ve lived some kind of normal life with her. You don’t even know if she would’ve agreed to it, but you were going to try  _ so hard _ to convince her. It would’ve been pretty easy. 

You don’t think you’ve wanted anything more in your entire life. But now you’re alone again, and you have to wonder what you’re going to do from now on.

You convince yourself this is what you deserve for trying to kill Steven.

-

You’re sitting on the edge, considering a few things. Height, for once. And velocity.

You know it would probably take a lot more than that, factoring in a few things. The soil isn’t nearly dense enough to make any kind of impact, you’d probably have to actually go all the way over to the kindergarten. But then everything else feels like too much work, and honestly, you don’t want to move right now anyway.

So you just continue to watch the horizon.

-

More time passes and you’re not going to pretend you’ve kept count of how many weeks since you’ve last seen her face. 

The moons happen to be out in full tonight, unlike the last week or so. There’s also no fog, but it’s cold enough that if she were here with you, she definitely would be complaining about it. You miss it, desperately. You can see the jungle all around you for miles, and it’d be a nice view if literally everything didn’t remind you of Y/N.

You’re standing there like you have been, for a while now, when you see something moving out of the corner of your eye up in the atmosphere. You stare at it for a while as it gets bigger, and you realize that it’s actually a ship? It’s pink.

That's Pink’s ship.

What? Your brain stutters as you watch it come down and get closer to the surface. You haven’t seen this ship in.. so long. It makes you feel  _ awful,  _ and- Oh, god. 

Obviously that’s Steven’s ship. You know this. He must be coming for Y/N, but they don’t know..

You don’t know what to do. If they find you, you have a feeling that trying to explain yourself won’t get you far. They’ll think that  _ you _ must’ve done something to Y/N, but how do you explain anything that has happened, when technically you don’t know? You have no proof of  _ anything. _

The ship lands about a mile or so away, giant legs sitting at nearly the same height as yourself. You can see faintly - several figures are coming out of the ship, but you can’t make out anything else. You start to panic.

Maybe you can go talk to them? No, they’ll just poof you - wait. That actually sounds pretty appealing right now. You see a figure running in the direction of the Spire, and anxiety mixed with dread fills you. Do they know you’re here?

You’re not ready for this.

You wait, frozen in place for several minutes as you try and figure out what to do. Should you try meeting with them? 

Before you know it, you see a figure run out to the base of the tower and the only thing you can make out before they duck inside the entrance is that they have pink hair. A weirdly familiar shade of pink.

Who the fuck landed on the planet? Steven didn’t have pink hair in his broadcast from what you could remember, maybe it’s some other gem he happens to know? Why are they here, and not him? You’re in the middle of several lines of thought when you see another figure with darker hair run into the base of the tower, and now you feel like you should hide for some reason.

You should’ve gone down to the bottom when they landed. You’re stuck up here now, and unless they decide to not walk up to the top, you’re basically a sitting duck waiting on forced confrontation. 

You’re starting to think maybe you should run down two floors to hide in the bundles of cloth, but you hear footsteps and noise behind you - you whip your head around, just to be seeing a familiar figure that happens to be tripping up the stairs. 

They catch themselves on a step, looking up at you - and you feel your face drop. It’s as if time stops.

It’s her.

“You’re alive?” You hear yourself saying out loud.


	17. Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> working retail during a pandemic SUCKS y'all

You're frozen. It's as if all your muscles and your brain decided to stop functioning altogether. You had so, so much to say to her, and yet you can't seem to form any words.

Her face hasn't changed - it's only been hours since you've seen her, but she's already been through several weeks without you. Without  _ anyone. _ Her eyes study your face, roaming over your features and hair as if she’s looking at a ghost.

“Yeah,” Is all you can manage to say, still out of breath as you try to think of anything,  _ anything _ to say to her. “I-”

"You’ve been alive?” She asks - cutting you off, voice full of disbelief, and the tired relief that you had seen in her eyes suddenly changes to something else.

“Spinel, I-”

“You’ve  _ been alive _ this entire time?” She asks again, voice cracking. She blinks, and you see small tears forming in her eyes. Your stomach drops.  _ Oh god, she can't be thinking.. _

"Yes, and  _ no. _ Let me explain," You try, calmy, as panic starts to flood your brain.

"You.." She trails off, and you watch her face as she goes through several series of emotions - coming to some kind of conclusion in her mind. She blinks again, leaving her eyes closed for a second to steady herself, and when she opens her eyes again to look at you, her expression changes to one you haven’t seen on her in what feels like a  _ very _ long time. "You left me here."

"Not  _ intentionally!" _ You reply, horrified at her words. "Believe me, they took-"

"So you knew?" Her voice wavers, underlying anger in her tone. 

"You're not letting me  _ explain _ myself!" You feel like you're about to throw up, this isn't how you wanted anything to go.

"What's there to  _ EXPLAIN _ when all the facts are here, huh,  _ Y/N?"  _ She's shaking a little, and you can see the pent up frustration in her form. "You disappeared on me, letting me think you were dead  _ FOR WEEKS, I _ -" She chokes on her words, balling her fist. 

"Spinel, I didn't DISAPPEAR," You say, taking a couple steps towards her, and reach towards her shaking fist to grasp it. "I'm  _ trying  _ to tell you that-" She suddenly grabs your wrist to stop you from touching her, and you feel your eyes widen in shock.

"I CAME SO  _ CLOSE _ TO-" The sound of rapid footsteps interrupts her, and she whips her head over to the staircase.

"DON'T YOU  _ TOUCH _ HER." You hear Steven angrily shout from behind you, and you freeze in place. This cannot be happening.

"Steven,  _ wait-"  _

"Y/N get  _ away _ from her, now." You hear him materializing his shield in his hands.

"Universe." Spinel spits out with distaste, and drops your wrist like dead weight. "Of course you'd show up."

"Couldn't kill her the first time, so you're trying to finish her off  _ now!?"  _ He exclaims, rushing up to your side with his shield up. You're so mortified that you're speechless.

Spinel lowers her eyes to the teen, facial expression bordering on dangerous as she lifts her shaking fist. "Ya' wanna say that aga-"

_ "STOP!!!"  _ You scream, because this is about to go very wrong,  _ very quickly _ if you don't put a stop to it. "BOTH OF YOU."

"Y/N-"

"Steven, I need you to leave." You say bluntly, nerves blurring the edges of your vision. Steven angrily whips his face to yours.

_ "No, _ I don't trust her to-"

"To  _ what,  _ exactly _ ,  _ Universe? What do ya’ think I’m gonna  _ do? _ ” She interrupts him, face absolutely twisted with quiet anger.

"You said you trusted me. You're only making this worse." You look at him, as he's eye level with you. You're trying to be calm. "I'll meet you at the ship in a couple minutes."

"Yeah, I trust  _ YOU. NOT HER."  _ He says, pointing to Spinel aggravatedly. "And I'm not leaving until we're all leaving."

You want to scream. You literally have like, no choice in this. 

"I'm not going anywhere." Spinel says, and you turn to look at her. She's got her face angrily fixed on Steven's. 

"Fine with  _ me."  _ Steven retorts. You give him a particular look before turning back to Spinel.

"Spinel.." It comes out of you half-broken - this isn't what you wanted to happen at all. She looks over to you as she hears your voice. 

"I wanted you to come home with me." And maybe when you say it, it comes out small, and sort of pathetic sounding. Her tense shoulders visibly deflate a little at that, and her eyes look at you vulnerably - she looks like she wants to say so much, but won't because of the other presence standing in the room.

"I.." She looks back over to Steven, and lets out a small sigh. 

"I wasn't going to take no for an answer." You say, and when her eyes meet yours again, the emotion you feel behind her gaze makes you want to hug her desperately. 

But you have a feeling that it would be best saved for a time where Steven wasn't also present. You also need to talk to him alone, but.. god. This is all too much for you, honestly. You know you’re barely hanging on by a thread here, but you’re trying your hardest to save your meltdown for when you’re alone. You haven’t had a chance to er.. really think about everything that’s happened to you in the last two to three days.

Steven clears his throat. “Can we go?”

“Let me explain everything on the way back home?” You say, still looking at Spinel and not even regarding Steven. “It’s a.. lot.”

She looks at you hesitantly, body language stiff as all hell with a scowl on her lips.

“Fine.” She says curtly, with a shrug. 

Steven de-materializes his shield in hand, and turns around to head back down the staircase behind him. You move to follow him - but not before looking back at Spinel, who’s standing there awkwardly.

She opens her mouth to say something, but upon seeing Steven stop on the staircase to glance back at you two she closes it abruptly - brushing past you instead. You wish so badly to be able to stop time to talk to her right now, just the two of you. But you know that you’ll have time - all the time you need after this, and you’ll be safe and at home. You just hope she doesn’t hate you.

-

She mainly sticks pretty close to you as the three of you walk back in near silence. In any other circumstance you’d joke with her that she’s becoming clingy, but her body language is unlike how you’ve ever really seen her. She’s uncomfortable and angry, that much you can tell just by knowing her. There's also nervousness as well. She’s not keen on walking anywhere near Steven, understandably.. You don’t know how you’re going to get past this second impression they now have of each other, but you should probably sort that before he tries telling the others some kind of.. misunderstanding. This doesn’t need to be even more complicated.

“Before we get to the others, Steven..” You say, glancing at him while walking briskly. You will not miss the jungle here, or any of this planet. He turns his face towards you.

“Yeah?” He answers. You feel Spinel’s arm brush against yours.

“What you saw back there wasn’t an altercation. You just walked up at like, the worst possible moment. Spinel wouldn’t lay a hand on me, I want to make this clear.” You see her take a small glance at you - she seems to be almost surprised at your words.

“Yeah, I came to that conclusion about five minutes ago.” He says, glancing at you. “If she really wanted to she would’ve tried attacking us by now - before we got back to the gems, you know, because tactically she’d have the advantage.”

“I would’ve done it up on the Spire, actually.” She speaks up from beside you. 

"Hey,  _ what.  _ Don't say that." You retort. "I'm trying to defend you, here."

She gives you a noncommittal shrug. “It’s not like I was gonna hurt anyone.”

_ "I  _ know that, Spinel. It's just, none of  _ them _ do." 

"Well, we're pretty close to the ship now." Steven interjects, and you can see the pink of the ship through the trees. Finally. "Anything left here that you need to grab before we go?"

"I grabbed the only thing that mattered, I'm good. Let's just get outta here." You say, and you can see Spinel sparing a glance at your face.

"This planet doesn't seem  _ that  _ bad, honestly." Steven says casually, looking up at the night sky. You can see the others waiting outside the ship now, and they're all looking in your direction.

"You weren't stuck here for a month." You retort. 

"Fair point." He says, and by the time you get over to the others you're already calming down your nerves about the other gems and Spinel. You hope no more misunderstandings happen. It's weird, how all this has gone down. You were honestly hoping that you'd get a better chance at an introduction, but this is kind of on par for your life at this point.

"Y'all ready?" Amethyst half yells out, hand on her hip in a relaxed pose. "Pearl's got the ship on standby."

"Please." You say tiredly. Garnet nods at you, turning around and stepping inside the ship. The rest of them walk in, and you turn to see Spinel standing there hesitantly, looking at the entrance. 

"You're coming, right?" You ask her.

"Yeah.. it's just been a while, seeing this thing up close." She says, looking up at the entirety of the height of the ship.

"It's just this once, if it makes you feel any better." You take a long last look at the planet around you, and flip the sky off. It makes you feel a weird sense of accomplishment. Fuck these moons, fuck this sun, fuck this whole  _ place _ . "Better than being stuck here."

"You're right on that." She says, brushing past you and entering the ship, you trailing right behind her. 

You hear the doors hiss shut behind you.

-

"So." Garnet says, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at you. Pearl's typing something on the console in front of her.

"Uh, yeah.." You glance over to Spinel, who looks completely out of place beside you. "Let's start over. This is Spinel."

"We know that, dingus." Amethyst chuckles.

"Yeah, well, there's no more murder plot, so let's clear that off the table." You reply, feeling a lot of relief drain from your body as you see you've left Golgotha's atmosphere entirely.

"For  _ her, _ maybe." Pearl pipes in, not even turning around. "There's still always gonna be others out there that want to kill Steven."

"She doesn't seem like she's consumed by anger anymore, regardless." Garnet says calmly, leaning on the wall behind her casually.

"I'm right here." She looks over to them irritably.

"Well, you already know who I am." Steven looks over to her, eyes trailing to the gem on her chest. "For the record, I'm really,  _ really _ sorry about what my mom did to you. Y/N told us all about it."

"It's.. fine." She says with a shrug, face thoughtful as she regards him. She still seems a little off to you, but it's not like you can just pull her aside and talk with her. "I've had some time to think it over, and while I maybe would've done things a bit differently, that's in the past now."

"Wow, if only Pearl could've got over her  _ that _ quickly." 

_ "Amethyst!"  _ Pearl squawks from the computer, face whipping around - expression wholly offended.

"...and  _ I'm _ Garnet." Garnet says with a little smile, and you feel like smacking your face against the side of the ship to escape this. 

There's utter silence for a beat or two, and you can see Steven's face trying to not laugh at that as he pulls a hand up to rub at his forehead. You hear a small snort off to your side, and you whip your head over to Spinel, who's shaking a little trying to keep in laughter. You feel something like relief blossom inside you.

"You guys are ridiculous. Of course she'd keep you as friends." She says, and strangely enough, there's no bitterness in her tone like you'd expect. 

"Normally I'd be insulted by that, but I'll take it as a compliment." Amethyst grins at Spinel. "But enough about us. I wanna hear about what you guys did on this planet for that long without killing each other."

"We were mainly concerned with trying to find a way off, actually. That, and exploring the mystery of the disappearance of those previous gems." Spinel replies.

"We wouldn't have had to find a way off if you hadn't destroyed the warp pad in the first place, but, I digress." You hear your voice ring out throughout this ship’s main control room.

"I wouldn't have had to destroy the warp pad if I wasn't watching my live bait try to escape me." She whips her face to you, narrowing her eyes a little.

"Don't call me  _ live bait, _ you ass! And if you were a smarter gem, you would've realized that humans can't even use the warp pad by themselves." You retort. "You played yourself."

"How was  _ I  _ supposed to know that?" She scoffs. "Tech goes through many changes after a few thousand years!"

"Wow, you guys  _ really _ get along." Amethyst chuckles, watching the both of you in amusement. 

"I would like to hear more about what you guys found on the surface, actually." Pearl brings a finger to her lip in question. "You mentioned the existence of the gem eater earlier, but how did you two not realise it was there sooner? Did it not make any noise? Considering the condition you were in when we picked you up, I’d figure it would’ve made itself obvious.."

"It was pretty quiet, actually.. aside from those quakes.." You trail off, realizing something. "Spinel, remember that night on the hill?"

She looks at you for a second, as if she doesn't understand what you're saying, and then you see her eyes light up when she understands what exactly you're implying.

"Oh god,  _ and _ that day in the kindergarten." She replies, putting a hand to her mouth in slight shock. 

"And you  _ wanted _ to go in! Remember!?" Jesus christ, you're never going to doubt your gut instinct ever again. You both could've died then.

"Well, I'm glad your stubbornness really paid off there." She crosses her arms, sighing. "Otherwise, well.. you know. Anyway, before anything else, you said you'd explain what happened before.. and I haven't even gotten an explanation as to why you're pink."

You feel yourself choke for a second, almost forgetting what you look like now. "Right. I've been trying to get there. It's a lot to take in. What did you last remember?"

"Before that thing went flying off the cliff? Only that you had said the air was affecting me."

"Yeah, you have no idea. Made you  _ completely _ useless, Spinel. I'm pretty sure it was some kinda pheromone to lure gems in."

"Huh, it did smell kinda weird.." She furrows her eyebrows, clearly thinking. "I hate that I was sort of right about it being a monster."

"You guys had no other clues?" Steven asks.

"No, as I said, the data logs were pretty corrupted."

"Yeah we were basically sitting blind, there." Spinel confirms, looking around at everyone. "I tried to restore it, but wasn't very lucky."

"Anyway, we walked into its nest, Spinel. You almost got me killed several times in there. That thing was blind and stupid like a bull, probably from sitting down there for thousands of years.."

"..and we brought dinner right to it." She stares at you, blinking.

"Yup." You say.

"We're so stupid." She shakes her head in disbelief.

"You’re telling me. How do you think  _ I _ felt when I realized where we were standing?” You sigh. “All the injectors were piled in there as well. The thing probably drank from them like some kinda fucked up juice box, ugh, it was awful. And the worst part was, I had to realize  _ by myself _ that it ate all those missing gems, and  _ that’s _ why the cave walls were so sparkly. Grinded gems into wall paste, how fucked up is that?”

Spinel looks at you, brows drawn forward in horror as everything you just said sets in.

“It  _ grinded _ them into dust?” Amethyst chimes in, voice full of disgust.

“That’s pretty terrible.” Garnet shakes her head slowly. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that alone.”

“You saved my life.” Spinel stares at you, expression almost strange.

“Twice.” You reply. “I’m going to have nightmares for that.”

"So when I came to, that's when you, er-" She stumbles on her words, getting this weird look in her eyes as she rips her gaze from yours. "-pushed me, and it slid off the cliff."

"It  _ fell _ to its death?” Pearl looks at you, perplexed. “With a wound that size, I was expecting you to tell us something a little more..  _ dramatic _ than that.”

“Look, it was coming  _ very fast, _ and I had to think quickly. I just wasn’t expecting the tail end of it to whip around and pierce me like a kabob, you know?” You say, and Steven gives you a funny look.

“Y/N, don’t ever say it like that again, it’s too soon.” He shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Today has really been taking its toll on me.”

“You’re telling  _ me.” _ You return the look Steven gives you, a bit more flatly. “Regardless, after that Spinel tried taking me back to the Spire, but I was bleeding so much that I made her stop to set me down before I bled out.”

“And that’s where we found you, dying.” He sighs, and you can see how tired he is. “I’m still kind of shaken up about it.”

“Ehh, buddy, she’s  _ fine.”  _ Amethyst says casually, putting her hands on her hips in a resting position. Steven gives her a pained face.

“She  _ died. _ I thought she wasn’t going to wake up, it’s not li-”

“Wait.” Spinel interjects, her face looking distraught. “What do you mean she died, she-” She abruptly stops herself, silence ringing out around the room as she moves into your personal space - grabbing your shirt to lift up and look at the scar on your stomach.

“- _ SPINEL!” _ You hiss out, slapping her hands down and pulling your shirt back. She isn’t phased though, and her face is utterly confused.

“Why does..”

“I have healing powers.” Steven says bluntly. Spinel’s eyes trail back up to yours, and she’s got this look in her eye you can’t quite place.

“You would’ve died.” She says it almost quietly, like she’s trying to wrap her head around it.

“I  _ did _ die, Spinel.” You watch her eyes as they waver between yours, and you can see one of her hands trembling.

“But you still sent me to get those supplies.. was.. was I gonna come back to your b-”

“Let’s not dwell on all the ‘what if’s’ today.” You say, stopping her from going down that particular thought path, unable to honestly even think about that. You’d rather not spontaneously burst into tears right here, right now, in front of everyone. “Hm.. I haven’t actually told any of you this, but..”

Steven looks at you - like he’s worried you’re going to die right now on the spot you’re standing in.

“Before I woke up, earlier.. I had this really, really fucking weird dream. Steven, I think I saw your mom? Her voice sounded a bit like the one from your tape - you know the one. And I was in this endless pink field? It was fucking weird.”

Steven stares at you.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You ask him, feeling a little odd.

“Was there a tree on a hill?” He asks you back, face unchanging.

“Uh.” You say. “Yeah?”

“Huh.” He makes a face, perturbed. “Maybe I should ask Lars about that when we get back.”

“Why?” You blink at him.

“Because that wasn’t a dream, and I think you spoke to my mom. Which is weird.” 

“Okay, I’m not even gonna ask what that’s all about, because I wanna know why you guys keep actin’ like all this just happened in the last day.” Spinel spits out in frustration, looking like she’s about to start pacing.

“It  _ did.” _ Pearl speaks up from over by the console, turning her face to look at Spinel. “We didn’t realize it at the time when we came to pick up Y/N, but that planet you decided to warp to, Golgotha? It runs at a much faster time on the surface.”

“What.” Spinel asks, more confused now than ever. “What does that mean?” 

“For the rest of us, you only came to attack Steven and kidnap Y/N just this morning.” Pearl says, brows drawn curiously. “You poofed Amethyst, and she took her sweet time coming back earlier.”

_ “Hey!” _ Amethyst throws a glare at Pearl several feet away.

Spinel looks off to the side, suddenly quiet and unmoving.

“I last saw you just a few hours ago, so everything is still fresh in my mind..” You trail off, watching her. You think she’s having a difficult time processing this.

“Y/N went a little crazy there when she found out about it actually, and demanded that we come get you immediately. I haven’t seen her like that in a loooong time, haha.” Steven says with a half-hearted laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

“She even threatened to steal a ship to come get you if we didn't.” You feel a little like Garnet is implying something with the way she says that, but you ignore it. Or maybe it’s because you can tell when she’s trying to hide a smile.

Spinel lifts her face slightly - eyes trailing over to yours, settling there. The room isn’t cold, far from it actually - you’re pretty warm, and yet you feel goosebumps on your arms. Her gaze lingers there, giving you a long hard look. You know her enough by now to be able to tell that she’s hiding a lot of emotion for some reason, but you can see it in the way she looks at you softly. Your heart hurts. You want to hug her.

“So you.. didn’t just forget about me there.” She says, and it comes out hesitant and quiet. Her eyes are still locked with yours.

“No. I would never.” You hear yourself say with a shake of your head, and you mean it. She looks like she’s about to say something but stops herself - taking in a breath instead, and tearing her eyes away from yours as you see a swell of emotion in her gaze.

“Soooooo. Not to ruin a moment, but like, but where is Spinel going to stay? I really can’t wait to go home and pass out and stuff, today has kinda blown, not gonna lie.” Amethyst says casually, blowing a piece of her hair out of her face.

“Oh, you’re right.” Steven crosses his arms, chewing his lip in thought. “I hadn’t thought of that. She can stay on the couch tonight, and I’ll go talk to Bismuth and the others about getting her a place to live in. That is, if she wants to be on Earth.”

Spinel looks over to Steven, slightly confused. “What’s my other option?”

“You could go back to Homeworld.” He offers.

“I think I’ll stay on Earth for a while. I’ve got a couple things I’d like to do.” She replies with minimal thought to it, looking right at you. You feel a little like the others seem to notice this, and you feel a bit self conscious about it. 

“A lot of gems came over to Earth once they got the freedom to. I think you’ll like it.” Steven says, a small smile forming on his lips.

“Yeah Earth’s alright.” Amethyst shrugs.

“Y/N told me a bit about Little Homeworld, back on Golgotha.” Spinel says. “Said you had quite a few classes.”

“Did she now?” Steven eyes you with a slight grin, making you nervous. “I knew she was proud of it, even if she acted like helping me plan some of the classes was a chore.”

“I  _ sooo _ did not.” You reply to him, offended.

“We’ll be back on Earth in five minutes, by the way.” Pearl taps on the console in front of her.

“You totally did! Anyway, Spinel, there’s a few I have in mind that you might find yourself benefitting from, if you want any suggestions.” You feel like Steven’s about to pull out one of the pamphlets, so you put a hand up to stop him.

“We can sort out the fine details later, I’m too tired to think about all of this right now,” You say with a sigh, utterly exhausted. You think you deserve some sleep after all of this.

“She’s right, we have time.” Steven stretches his arms over his head and yawns loudly. “And I’m utterly beat from today. If this could not happen again for a while, that’d be great.” Spinel gives him a small guilty face at that.

“Yeah, you know anyone else that Pink pissed off?” Amethyst says bluntly.

_ “Amethyst.” _ You nearly spit out. “You can’t just ask that.”

“What, it’s a valid question.” She shrugs, rolling her eyes. 

You hear Spinel stifle a snort, and when Steven starts to chuckle the rest of them start to laugh, giggles filling the ship’s main deck. 

You sigh, unable to stop the small smile that’s starting to spread across your face. 

Maybe things will be okay.

-

By the time you get off the ship and the rest of them have dispersed into their rooms to rest, it leaves just you, Spinel and Steven in the living room together. 

“The bathroom’s right there if you need it for some reason, just let me go grab my spare blankets for you realll quick.” Steven points to the bathroom door as he walks over to the utility closet, pulling out his favorite spares. “I don’t know if you sleep, a lot of gems don’t. Pearl doesn’t, and Garnet’s more of a.. meditator. But the couch is comfy enough until we can get you your own place tomorrow.”

“You guys are doing too much for me, and it’s honestly more than I deserve.” Spinel says, watching him as he walks back over, setting the blankets down on the nearest couch cushion.

“Hey, don’t say that. If I had that attitude for all other gems that tried to kill me, I wouldn’t be friends with Bismuth, Peridot and Lapis. And er, Pearl in some cases too..” He trails off, furrowing his eyebrows in thought. He shakes his head, as if to clear it. “Anyway, I wanted to apologize for earlier. I might’ve rushed into thinking the  _ worst _ possible thing immediately, and that’s unfair to you, Spinel.”

“I..” She looks kind of speechless, like she wasn’t expecting that from him at all. “Well, it’s not like I gave you any reason to think anything  _ else _ from me. You don’t need to be sorry.”

“I don’t like leaving things unsaid.” He replies with a grin. “I’m going to go pass out before my body does it for me, right here. Try not to be loud if you get curious and explore my house, I’ll be sleeping over there.” He points to his loft bed, a single eyebrow raised. “Peridot’s woken me enough times in the middle of a deep sleep, my body’s reaction is to just start throwing things at noise now.”

“Yeah, he’s thrown things at  _ me _ when I’ve accidentally tripped going to the bathroom.” You say with disdain, giving him a face.

“Blame Peridot!” He grins, turning around to walk up his stairs. “Anyway, goodnight you two! And  _ Y/N _ I swear to god you better get some sleep. You guys can talk in the morning.” He shoots one last glare at you before you see him disappear into his covers.

You look over to Spinel, and she’s already over by the couch. The house is quiet now, moonlight coming in through the windows, early morning approaching probably in another hour or so. She sits down, looking out of the window towards the ocean. You watch her dark silhouette and you feel some kind of weight lift from your shoulders, taking comfort in the fact that she’s right here, and she’s safe. She seems almost small here in Steven’s living room, and you wonder how this is the same angry, violent gem you met weeks ago. 

Yesterday, technically. You don’t want to think about that anymore.

You stand there unmoving, tired. She looks back over you, and you feel all the energy drain out of your body, shoulders sagging. You take a deep breath, letting the air drain out of your lungs slowly. 

You want to say something. 

Anything. 

You stare at each other. She blinks, and you can see her pupils trail over the details of your face as if she’s trying to memorize it. She opens her mouth slightly, clearly she’s trying to say something - but she closes her mouth instead. She looks away, momentarily, and you can see that she’s looking over in Steven’s direction. 

Her gem shines in the dark of the room, and your eyes want to stay fixated on it. 

She looks back over to you - taking a deep breath and exhaling it ever so slowly, chest moving with it.

“Y/N.” She says, very quietly, and you can see her wringing her hands nervously. You can hear your own heart beating in your ears. Your heart and brain are screaming at each other right now, but you can’t hear the words.

“I’m going to sleep.” You say, turning around to go to your room like some kind of fucking idiot.


	18. Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter getting way too fucking big so you get this as a separate chapter LOL

You close your bedroom door behind you, hearing an audible soft  _ click.  _ You lean your back against the door momentarily, feeling your shoulder blades pressing against the wood. You take in a breath slowly, exhaling it out of your nose. You missed the smell of home. Moving your hand over the bumpy texture of the wall, you palm the lightswitch for your nearest lamp.

Your room is the same as you left it.

It feels weird, honestly. Like there should be dust on the edges of your bookshelf, but there isn’t. Like somehow you had stopped time by being on that shithole, even if you know that’s not the case. You move over to your bed and sit down on it, feeling so, so very tired. You let your body move on autopilot, hands stretching over fabric - you fling your bra off and it hits the wall with a satisfactory  _ smack. _ You know you changed your clothes earlier after your shower, but you get up again to grab something a little more comfortable than a shirt and jeans.

You pick out a loose oversized long-sleeved shirt, and some soft shorts. Putting them on, you never realized how much you missed something as simple as a change of clothing. 

You sit back down on your bed, flopping on it arms wide on your covers. It.. feels like heaven.

You lay there for a good twenty minutes or so, mind wandering. Turning your head to the side, you look over to your wall with all the posters Steven helped you put up, and the corkboard with all of the funland photostrips you have of yourself and the gems. You missed spending time with Steven and them a lot more than you had thought, honestly. 

Your gaze roams over a few more things before it eventually falls onto your outstretched hand, and you blink a few times. You forgot you now had pink skin. You roll over to your side, touching your one hand with the other - your skin doesn’t feel any different. You feel the same as before. 

You let out a long sigh, hearing it clearly as the rest of the room is dead quiet. Your ears ring a little, here in the quiet, but you try to tune it out with the louder thoughts in your head.

You died, and it’s a weird thought. You really only remember being tired, much like how you’re tired now - only now, you just feel it in your face instead of your whole body. You remember the weird feeling of losing a lot of blood very quickly. The feeling of adrenaline rushing through you as you couldn’t believe what had just transpired. You barely even felt being pierced, actually.. You don’t.. honestly want to put too much thought into it anymore, really. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now, and you’re alive, and so is Spinel.

Speaking of.

You’re kind of a moron.

You should probably go out there to talk to her. Like, there’s..  _ so _ much to talk about, and it’s a little overwhelming. You refuse to put too much thought into thinking about her right now though - you’d be lying here forever if you did. You also don’t want to disturb Steven’s sleep, but the thought of having Spinel in your room right now is kind of too much for you, truthfully. You don’t want the gems to think anything weird..

_ Oh my god you’re so fucking stupid. Just go out there and talk to her, dipshit. _

You get up off your bed, not letting yourself even try to convince your brain to roll over and fall asleep, as much as your body wants to. You get over to your door, hand on the doorknob - and open it again quietly. Your bare feet step outside your bedroom, closing the door behind you with another  _ click. _ You very slowly creep back down the hallway over to the living room, a little nervousness seeping into your steps. It’s a bit drafty out here, and you regret not putting on pajama pants a little.

Looking past the corner warily, you see Spinel still sitting on the couch. You don’t think she moved, actually, as she’s staring out at the ocean again. As soon as she hears your footsteps near her, she turns her head over to you, surprised. Her eyes widen a little more when she realizes it’s you.

“..Weren’t ya’ gonna sleep?” She whispers quietly. The moonlight hits her face gently, and she almost looks completely different to you now than she did on Golgotha. It does something weird to your heart, and you don’t push the feelings away this time now that you recognise them. Her eyes are soft as her gaze lingers on you purposefully.

“Yeah.. about that, I changed my mind.” You say, hushed, and you grab the blanket Steven placed on the couch to wrap around your shoulders. You briefly think about asking her to take a walk with you outside, but your aching muscles and cold legs scream back at you instead. You take a seat next to her.

“Why? You’re clearly tired.” She crosses her arms as she looks at you strangely.

“Shush, I’m fine.” You reply as quiet as you can, feeling your face glare at her a little. “And uh.. I don't think I can fall asleep just yet? I kinda wanted to apologize for earlier.”

“Apologize for what?” She faces you fully, confusion all over her face.   
  
“For that shit with Steven earlier.” You shrug at her, biting your lip. "I probably could have handled that a lot better.."

She stares at you silently, deadpan. 

"Shut  _ up." _ She whispers, when she decides to open her mouth a full five seconds later. 

"What, no." You reply, leaning back on the couch. "I'm serious. I should've had a longer talk with him before approaching you, that was a disaster that could've-" 

She puts a gloved finger to your lips, silencing you with a roll of her eyes.

_"That's_ what you're apologizing for? You're utterly ridiculous." She takes the finger off your lips, and you fight down a blush that has no business making itself present on your face. You're just overanalyzing it because she touched your _lips,_ and you're a little touch starved. "If you should apologize for anything, it's for putting yourself in harm's way and actually getting yourself killed."

"I only did it to save  _ you, _ stupid.” You retort, and she lowers her eyes at you, eyebrows slightly furrowed with frustration.

“That’s my entire problem, Y/N. I never should have had ya’ in that position in the first place.”

“Listen, I’m not going to argue with you about the details about what went down. It’s over now.” You say, pulling the blankets further around your shoulders to block out the chill. “Just let me apologize how I want to.”

“You’re irritating.” She sighs, quietly.

“Eh, you missed me.” You deflect automatically with a small shrug, mouth working a lot faster than your brain.

Her face breaks for a second, and she looks away - off to the side, clearly avoiding your eyes entirely. Something in your chest twists painfully at that.

“..I did, yeah.” The words come out of her so quietly that you almost don’t catch it, at first. You feel your heart start to beat a little faster when you realize what exactly she just said.

“I..” You trail off, blinking. You don’t know what to say. “Spinel..”

“I never thought I’d see you again.” She looks up at you, and you can tell she’s holding back tears as your heart nearly shatters into pieces. Oh..

You want to hug her.

You sit there for a second, fighting yourself. And then you figure,  _ fuck it, who gives a shit?  _

“Can I have a hug?” You ask her quietly, and wait for her response. She looks at you like you’re stupid, and a tear rolls down her cheek. You wish to wipe it away.

“You’re  _ asking?!”  _ She whispers harshly, like you’ve got some nerve with a request like that. You’re almost ashamed with yourself, because maybe she’s too hurt right now to want any kind of touch - before she opens her mouth again. “You’re such an idiot.”

You open your mouth to object, and instead find arms wrapping around your shoulders tightly as she practically launches herself at you. You let out a small  _ oof _ as the wind is basically knocked out of you, and you wrap your arms around her waist in turn.

“If  _ I’m _ an idiot, then what does that make you?” You retort. She squeezes you tighter against herself, and you can feel her gem pressing against your sternum. She’s warm. You didn’t realize that this is exactly what you needed, and you feel your body relaxing against her.

“Why can’t you be nice to me for once?” She mumbles into your shoulder tiredly.

“You called me an idiot first.” You reply, even though there’s no fighting bone left in your body tonight. You rest your chin on her shoulder, tapping your head against hers softly. You think you could probably be in this position for hours without caring, honestly. It’s nice, being this close to her.

She’s quiet for several long seconds, but you don’t mind.

“You smell nice..” She says with a sigh, and you can feel her cheek pressing into your bare neck. You suppress a small shudder, and ignore the way you can feel her warm breath on your sensitive skin.

“Thanks, I bathed. With actual soap and clean water this time.” You adjust your arms around her slightly to a more comfortable position, and you feel her relax further into your arms. "I'm sorry you were left alone for so long on Golgotha."

"I've dealt with it before, it’s fine.” She says quietly. “I'm just glad you're alive."

“Spinel.. you don’t need to downplay what happened just because you’ve already been through something awful.” You squeeze your arms a little tighter around her. She fits so nicely against them, like she was made for that exact purpose. “At least, not around me.”

“I..” You hear her cut herself off with a choke as she buries her face into your neck, and you freeze in place. She doesn’t say anything, instead you hear the muffled crying she’s trying to hide very badly - you feel your shoulder start to dampen. It takes your entire being to hold back your own tears, and you feel one spill, but you pay no attention to it. 

“I want you to know, when I first woke up - from when Steven revived me, I remembered nothing at first. Like, I ran to the bathroom to puke, but I didn’t seem to remember what happened on Golgotha, or even being taken by you. It was like I had temporary amnesia. That is.. until I slipped and fell in the bath, hitting my head on the tub.” You hear her sniffle quietly, and you keep going. "That was the worst reality check ever. I tried to not panic when I realized what happened and that you weren't with me. And  _ then _ I realized what it would be like for  _ you.. _ without me there. I might've panicked a bit then."

You hear a particularly strong gust of wind hit the window, making the glass panel shudder a little. Steven's snoring in the background, your ears catching nothing else in the quietness of the house. You feel your eyes droop a little in tiredness, but force yourself to be more alert. Spinel pulls away from the hug, and looks at your face. 

"Thanks.. for coming back for me." She takes in a breath, blinking, cheeks glistening with tears.

"I try to keep my promises." You reach up to her face, and wipe away some of the tears with your thumb subconsciously. You realize what you're doing and pull away quickly - but her facial expression sort of tells you she didn't actually mind that at all.

"I want another hug.." She mumbles, looking away from you slightly. She’s  _ so _ cute, and ugh, it’s doing stupid things to your heart. You like her  _ way _ more than you thought you did. 

“C’mere.” You want to laugh at her, but instead you just pull her back in for another hug. She sighs into your arms, her entire body deflating against yours. 

You haven't felt this comfortable in a long time. You reach up to pat her head softly, and you feel her dig her fingers into the shirt on your back as she presses her face further into your shoulder. This is the closest she's ever been to you, for this long, and your heart beats loudly in your chest due to this. You hope she can’t hear it.

"Well, what now? I didn't think I’d actually get this far." She asks quietly.

“What do you mean?” You hear movement coming from Steven and your anxiety spikes momentarily, but then you realize he’s just tossing and turning in his sleep. "Like.. you didn't think you'd ever get off of Golgotha?"

"Yeah. And honestly? Everything you had said kind of seemed like a pipe dream. I mean, what am I supposed to do? I don't really know how to..  _ do _ anything, I guess.” You feel her words as she speaks them, vibrations rumbling on the skin near your neck - you feel her fingers anxiously fumble with the back hem of your shirt.

“You just take it day by day, you don’t need some big plan. We already talked about visiting Little Homeworld in the meantime, you’ll be fine.” You squeeze your hands against her, and her hair tickles your nose a little.

“I guess..” She sighs, warm against you. Just hugging her for this long makes you feel better than you have in days, slight crying aside. “None of this feels quite real yet. I feel like I’m just sitting here waiting for some other bad thing to happen.”

“It might take you a while to adjust, Spinel. I mean - it’ll be a process for me too.. so you’re not going to be alone in that. I’m not going anywhere, you don’t have to be so uneasy about all of this. Plus, I think if you open up a little and give him a chance, Steven would love to be your friend you know. So you wouldn’t just have me. And I think the others will warm up to you in time as well.” You say, and she pulls away from you to give you a look.

“Ya’ think after all this, he’d want to be  _ my _ friend?” She asks, making a face. Her eyelashes still glisten a little with tears in the moonlight, but they no longer look like they’re in any danger of falling. “Any of them?”

“As long as you’re not mean to him, I think you have a decent shot.” You reply, quirking an eyebrow at her. “Although, he still seems to be decent friends with Jasper, and she’s an asshole.  _ And _ she’s tried killing him multiple times, so I think you’ve got a leg up on her honestly.”

“What, you don’t trust me?” She asks, half a grin starting to form on her face.

“You’re not even nice to me.” You roll your eyes at her, and lean back on the couch. 

“I am nice to you!” She whispers harshly, and even has the nerve to look offended that you’re not sharing the blanket with her, so you give her the left side of your blanket. 

“You’re so not.” She pulls the other side of the blanket back over to the front of you both, covering you. “And if I catch you actin’ like Jasper does to him, we’re gonna have words.”

“First of all, I ain’t gonna treat anyone like I treat  _ you. _ For the most part. Secondly, why haven’t ya’ gotten her to be nice to him? Or are you a bit  _ scared _ of this Jasper character?” She perks an eyebrow at you in mockery.

“Pfft,  _ no. _ I’m not scared of her, she’s just irritating to deal with.”

“And you’re not scared of  _ me?”  _ The grin on her face widens, a little bit of teeth showing - she gets this bold look in her eye that sets your heart ablaze.

“God no. You’re not even remotely intimidating. I’ve watched you snore so loud you’ve woken yourself up.” You retort, and try to calm your rapidly beating heart.

She chokes a bit in offence, quietly - she’s aware enough to try to not wake Steven, and then curiously, her facial expression changes to something.. suspiciously cocky. And then she opens her mouth to speak.

“I don’t know, I think I can be pretty intimidating when I  _ want _ to be.” She says, quietly, face a full five inches from yours. The silence in the room would be deafening if you couldn’t hear Steven’s light snoring faintly in the background. There’s some kind of suspicious glint in her eye that you’re trying to ignore.

You stare at her, speechless for a moment. The white of her eyes shine in the moonlight, pupils completely focused on you. You think, briefly, your face might  _ not _ give away the thoughts in your head; of Spinel pressing you against the couch, those teeth digging into the soft flesh of your neck. But with the slow raise of a single eyebrow, and what you think is a knowing look - that thought is squashed. You fight down the inevitable blush that wants to make itself apparent on your face, feeling a glare take its place instead. You scream internally.

“That’s what  _ you _ like to think.” You hear coming from your own mouth, and you prop your feet up on the coffee table in front of you. Your feet are cold, and you wish you had slippers. She spares your bare legs a glance for a moment, eyes trailing back to yours. “You keep thinkin’ that. Anyway, things will be alright. Believe me.”

"If you say so.." She says with a casual shrug. You feel her scoot a little closer to you for warmth; she nudges her elbow against your arm on accident. You don't mind. You're so tired that you know if you close your eyes for more than five seconds, your body is passing out. You're absolutely trying to  _ not _ think about your hands roaming her skin, or her lips on-

Wow. You put those thoughts into a suitcase, and pack that suitcase into a duffel bag, and throw that into a locked trunk inside your mind.

The wind howls against the glass window panes again, rattling them enough to draw both of your attention towards the view outside. Morning seems to be approaching quickly, there's several pink streaks tearing across the shadowed clouds on the horizon. The ocean is as dark as ever though; long, black line expanding further than you can see.

It's peaceful, and you're grateful you get to experience this moment. You were almost sure there, for a while, that you'd never be able to experience an Earth sunrise ever again. You feel your eyes get heavy, staying awake getting increasingly more difficult. 

"I used to think the planet Earth was a waste of resources. Like many, many other planets in this galaxy." She says, voice soft next to you. You lean against the backrest of the couch, pulling the blanket up to your chin. Your head feels so heavy, lying against the cushion. 

"Yeah? What about now?" You ask, amusement coming out in your voice. The irony is that Homeworld looks like a cracked walnut, and Earth is still completely intact (for now) _ . _

She turns her face to look at you, eyes lingering on you for a moment.

"It's alright." She says with a wry smile. Her eyes waver between the two of yours, as if she’s searching for something in them. There’s a moment here, between the two of you. It’s.. it’s something you can’t quite place, but it has your heart feeling so incredibly light.

_ “Just _ alright?” You ask, feeling your face break into a small smile.

“Yeah.” She sighs, relaxed. She leans her head against yours, pulling the covers around you both tightly. 

It has you feeling stupidly happy, sitting there with her like this. You are also feeling so, so tired.

She starts to fill the morning quietness with some kind of monologue about the ocean out beyond Steven’s deck compared to other bodies of water, and you’re having a hard time concentrating on anything other than the sound of her voice. Your head feels heavy against hers, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

You drift off sometime then, warm and content and alive.


	19. Nineteen

Strangely enough, you wake up in your bed.

You don’t remember coming into your room to sleep, but here you are. It’s light out - the blinds are closed, but the window is glowing with sunlight. You rub at your eyes, trying to get the rest of the lingering feeling of sleep out of them. You wonder what time it is, and you look over to see your phone left on your small bedside dresser. Without moving from your lying position, you reach over to grab it off the flat surface.

You pull out the charging cable, and open your lock screen. It’s a bit past two in the afternoon. Ugh. You see a couple texts from Steven, and some from an unknown number. You open his messages first.

[10:23] Steven: I woke up fairly early and saw you asleep on the couch with Spinel. Color my face surprised. Wasn't expecting you two to be so chummy considering how you met, initially.

[10:23] Steven: I told you to get some sleep but you really don’t want to listen to me, huh? She helped me put you to bed. Was a little surprised at how careful she was with you.

[10:23] Steven: Anyway, you looked like you needed quite a bit of rest so Pearl, myself and Spinel are going to Little Homeworld ourselves to introduce her to some of the others and show her around a bit.

[10:24] Steven: Take it easy today, and don’t fret about the small stuff. I’ll take care of it, as well as giving some of the others a quick run-down of what happened so you’re not bombarded with the same questions multiple times. 

[10:24] Steven: I gave Spinel one of my old cell phones that Peridot ‘upgraded’, the one with the heart stickers you put on the back ( _ I _ thought it was funny), and gave her your number. Watching her try to navigate human technology was hilarious, btw.

[10:24] Steven: Also we still have that tub of blueberry yogurt in the fridge that I didn’t really like, so if you’re hungry please eat that first. Pearl won’t let me buy more yogurt until I finish that one. :(

You stare at the texts for a moment, brain working a little slow still. Lord.. you can't believe Steven saw you like that, and with  _ Spinel. _ He could've reacted way worse, but you're glad that it wasn't the case. You kinda have a feeling he might ask you a couple personal questions regarding that.. ugh. You’re also trying to not be disappointed that you’re not there with them and Spinel, and getting to see her interactions with the others.

Oh well, nothing you can do about it now. You text him back before opening the other messages.

[02:09] Y/N: Pssh, I’ll sleep when I want to sleep. Plus, I couldn’t really pass out before talking to her about shit on my mind. It’s fine. And thanks for making sure I didn’t wake up with a stiff neck.

[02:09] Y/N: Keep an eye on her for me, yeah? She’s anxious about all of this.

[02:09] Y/N: And.. thank you, Steven. You know you're my favorite, right?

After sending the texts, you go over and open the unsaved number’s messages from a couple hours ago. They’re clearly from Spinel, so you save the number to your contacts before reading them all.

[10:42] Spinel: did it send

[10:42] Spinel: i think it did this time, phewwww no error message

[10:42] Spinel: this tech is old and weird but i can deal with it for now

[10:42] Spinel: i hope you got okay sleep

[10:42] Spinel: i’m out with steven and pearl as i’m sure he’s told you already

[10:42] Spinel: she’s kinda annoying sometimes, is that normal for her? i don’t know how to feel about her, especially knowing pink as much as i did

[10:43] Spinel: and i know you told me to be nice to steven, but he’s already laughed at me for being confused at your human tech. never listening to you again

[10:43] Spinel: little homeworld is not what i was expecting, but i think i like this a little better than whatever i had thought, anyway

[10:43] Spinel: bismuth is fun. i like her. she says she’ll put me to work for it, but she has a small place for me in this new housing block that’ll be ready for me later today

[10:43] Spinel: it feels kinda like too much at once and it’s a little overwhelming

[10:43] Spinel: but steven has helped a ton, and i’m starting to understand why you defended him as much as you did.

[12:16] Spinel: [attachment received]

You open the file, and it’s a very blurry image of the sidewalk and what you think is Spinel’s shoes. Did she mean to send that? You feel your face smiling, despite the weird feelings starting to blossom in your stomach. You’re glad she’s getting along with the others. You had been.. wary, really, and for good reason. But if the others can get over  _ other _ gems trying to kill Steven fairly quickly, then you’re not surprised they can get over this,  _ this _ soon. It was always  _ you _ technically that held a grudge against the other gems that tried causing him harm. And well, you did hold a bit of a grudge against Spinel for a while..

You sigh out loud, and sit up before texting her back. It feels  _ weird _ to be texting her, when you were so used to face-to-face communication.

[02:12] Y/N: I slept fine. Thanks for putting me to bed, Steven said some nice things about you :P

[02:12] Y/N : I’m glad you got used to cellphones pretty quickly, I’m a little impressed. And give Pearl some time, you just gotta brush off half her nagging for the most part.

[02:12] Y/N: What were you expecting little homeworld to be like? And how sweet of Bismuth, you should take a pic of the place when you get into it, I wanna see what it looks like inside.

[02:13] Y/N: Yeah.. it will feel like too much, Spinel. Think of what your life was like before this. I  _ did _ say there was going to be a lot to adjust to.

[02:13]  Y/N: Also did you mean to send that last image because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at exactly, there.

You check your social media for a second as you try not to let all of your thoughts linger on Spinel, and then roll your eyes at yourself when you realize  _ ah right, a month didn’t actually pass here. _ There’s nothing new. You stand up, stretching your arms way over your head.

It feels good, not sleeping on the ground for once.

You make quick work of changing into an oversized sweater and some shorts from your current sleepwear, wanting to wear something loose and different. Phone in hand, you meander out of your room hungry, and into the kitchen. You see Amethyst in the living room, chilling on the couch and reading some magazine. Except you know she’s not reading it, she’s just looking for weird images to cut out and prank Pearl with in weird places.

“‘Sup.” She says without looking up from her browsing as you open the fridge, looking for anything  _ but _ that yogurt. A month of only bullshit weird, plain fruit to eat and he thinks you’ll finish off his yogurt for him?

“Hey.” You reply back to her, and ugh.. unless you want to go through the effort of making eggs, toast and yogurt are really your only option since they haven’t gone food shopping. You make a face at the fridge, grabbing for the yogurt and closing the door.

“How ya’ feelin’?” She asks casually, flipping a page. An eye drifts over the page to land on you, and she lifts an eyebrow in interest. “You look better than you did yesterday.”

“...Thanks,” It comes out slightly insulted, but, well, it’s Amethyst. She doesn’t mince her words. “I got some decent sleep for once. Is Garnet home?”

“Nah, she’s got one of her lessons going on.” 

“And you don’t?” You grab the bread out of the cupboard, and squint at it for a second. There’s.. a bit of fucking mold on the edge. Ugh. Your luck. You toss the bread onto the counter for Amethyst to eat later, and spot a single bagel left in the cupboard behind a bag of flour. Oh hell yeah.

“Not today, we pushed mine til tomorrow because Onion couldn’t participate for some reason.” She blows a lock of hair out of her face, turning a page.

“All for Onion, and he’s not even a gem. He can sit out one lesson.” You put the bagel in the toaster - getting crumbs everywhere and not caring, and grabbing a spoon for your yogurt.

“C’mon, you know the others love him, it was basically all their decision anyway.” She flips another page, and you can see her giving you a pointed look that you’re going to ignore. “Besides, I wanted to relax today anyway, considering all the stress you just put me under.”

“Cause it was  _ totally _ by choice.” You retort with a roll of your eyes, opening the lid of the yogurt disdainfully and giving it a sniff. It smells fine but.. Ugh. You’re not much of a fan of yogurt. You take a bite, and it’s  _ okay _ you guess.

“What are you planning on doing with the rest of your afternoon, anyway?” She asks as soon as you take another bite of yogurt.

“I uh,” You swallow. “I don’t know, actually. I was thinking I’d be with Steven and Pearl, showing Spinel around, but it seems they’re all doing that without me.” You say, half a frown forming on your face. You kind of realize that you’re way more disappointed by that fact than you had previously figured, but that train of thought is interrupted by the bagel popping out of the toaster. You jump slightly, almost launching your yogurt out of your hands. Amethyst notices but doesn’t make a comment about it.

“Y/N, I  _ know _ you’re really caring and wanna help, but don’t you think you should take a couple days just for you?” She gives you a look.

“A couple days to what?” You match her look, popping an eyebrow for extra emphasis. “Relax? Like the weeks I just spent doing absolutely nothing on a forgotten planet in the middle of nowhere? I’m good.”

She looks at you, deadpan, and sighs. You notice a bunch of bananas on the top of the fridge that you had missed earlier, and get an idea that’s better than just eating yogurt.

“You’re kind of impossible. I’m telling Steven to not let you help him with any more of his current projects.” She sets the magazine down and cracks her knuckles obnoxiously. “Maybe it will force you to go out and do something for yourself for once.”

“Don’t you dare.” You say in annoyance, grabbing the bananas and blender from the top of the fridge, setting them on the counter. You grab the milk from the fridge and pour a little inside, and dump some of the yogurt in as well. You don’t care for proper proportions, you measure smoothies with your  _ soul. _

“I’m literally texting him right now and you can’t stop me.” She grabs for her phone, typing on it quickly.

“You can’t  _ make _ me relax, Amethyst.” You say, peeling two bananas and tearing them into small enough chunks to blend, putting those in as well with a couple cubes of ice for good measure. “If I want to help out, I’m helping out.”

“Not if I can help it.” You hear her say as you put on the lid of the blender and plug it into the outlet next to it.

You grab your phone to text Steven to dissuade him from whatever Amethyst is saying to him, and press the  _ liquify _ button on the blender.

A terribly familiar  _ whirring _ noise fills the room, and your blood runs cold. You freeze on the spot.

You rip the plug from the outlet near violently, silence filling the immediate space. A beat or two passes.

“Uh.” You hear Amethyst say from fifteen feet behind you. “Y/N? You okay?”

You’re staring at the blender, and you can’t get your mouth to move. The chunks of ice shift, light from the afternoon sun hitting it and causing it to sparkle. 

“Y/N?” She asks again, and you hear slight shuffling.

There’s this indescribable feeling of fear and dread swirling at the pit of your stomach, and then you feel an arm pulling at your elbow. 

“Y/N.” Amethyst reiterates from beside you, and suddenly, you can turn your head to face her.

“Yeah?” You answer, facing her and blinking. She looks at you for a second before answering.

“What was that?” Her brows furrow in concern.

“I, um.” You realize you aren’t hungry anymore. “That was nothing.”

“Bullshit.” She looks offended at your response. “I’ve never seen you react that way before, to like, anything.”

“Uhhhhh, you know what?” You say, feeling like your mouth is working on autopilot at this point. “I’m gonna go out actually.”

You spin around, walking around Amethyst entirely despite her protests, and leave out the front door. You hear it slam shut behind you.

-

By the time you check the time, it’s nearly five in the afternoon, and you’re in front of the new bakery, Spacestries. You uh.. you didn’t realize you had walked all the way over here. You think you wandered the beach for a while, trying to definitely  _ not _ think about what happened in the kitchen, with Amethyst as a fucking witness. Embarrassing. Could’ve been worse, you guess - it could have been Pearl there. It’s probably best if you don’t use the blender for a while. 

You’re completely annoyed with yourself about all of that, really, and by pushing all of that away you’re trying to not let the rest of your thoughts linger on the  _ other _ thing you shouldn’t put any more thought into, which are your obvious feelings for Spinel. That area is a whole ass disaster that you’d rather ignore right now. You have a few notifications that you swipe away as soon as they come; your heart pathetically skipping a beat when it sees her name there for a split second - you’re not in the right mood to reply to the messages at the moment. Later.

You sigh, pocketing your phone. You look at the shiny new sign above, squinting at the sun in your eyes, and someone nearly walks into you on the sidewalk. Ugh. You stand there for a second, letting the hot air of summer waft by. You smell fries from somewhere nearby, and your stomach growls. A car honks off in the distance.

It’s not even a busy day out. It’s just another lazy afternoon, something you’ve experienced many, many times in your life. But you find yourself listening to the muted sounds of Beach City, thankful that you’re standing here on a paved sidewalk that was made by humans. Your hair tickles your nose, and you blow air to get it out of your face.

A minute or so passes. You figure you should just go in and buy yourself a cheese roll or something. You don’t know why you’re just standing outside.

You take in a deep breath, and open the door. It chimes as you come in.

It’s cool inside from the air conditioning, and there’s no one behind the counter. You walk in slowly, hearing your footsteps tapping on the floor. There’s a small FM radio off to the side playing the top 40’s that you can barely make out due to all the static. It’s been a while since you’ve heard music.

There’s a lot of pastries on display, and they look good. You wonder if he’s working today. You walk up to the counter leisurely, looking at the glazed fruit tarts on the top display shelf.

“I’LL BE UP FRONT IN A SECOND!” You hear a familiar muffled voice coming from the back room. 

“Take your time, Lars. It’s just me.” You reply, hearing your voice not carry very far. You hope he heard you despite the white noise of the AC. There’s a couple more shuffling sounds, as it sounds like he’s rounding the corner.

You see the tray of cream puffs in one hand before Lars walks out, and he’s got another in the other hand, balanced on his hip.

_ “Y/N? _ Is that you out ther-” He stops abruptly as soon as he sees your face; and one of the trays slips out of his hand,  _ clattering _ on the floor loudly.

He opens and closes his mouth. Twice.

“What in the actual  _ fuck _ happened to you!?” He nearly shouts, eyes wide. He rushes to set the remaining tray on the counter, and completely ignores what is on the floor to get over to where you’re standing.

“Uh..” You pull your sweater sleeves down, AC giving your arms goosebumps. “A lot. Can I have one of your fresh cheese rolls?”

He gives you an incredulous look. “Yeah, as soon as you tell me how you fucking  _ died!?  _ What the hell have I missed in the last fews days while I was out of town!?”

“Cheese roll first, buddy.” You say, and cross your arms.

“Ugh,  _ FINE!” _ He tosses his hands into the air, and makes quick work of grabbing his freshest roll for you, placing it into your hands with a napkin. He gives you another look.

You take a bite out of it, and it tastes so good that you feel tears prickling the corners of your eyes, and you cannot stop them from forming. Lars seems to take notice.

“Spill. You’re being weird and I’m  _ actually _ concerned right now.” He puts his hands on his hips. You finish chewing before answering, but he holds up a finger instead. “Wait. Sit down and finish that, I’ll go grab some coffee for the both of us, I just made fresh pot that should be done brewing by now.”

He leaves momentarily to grab the coffee, and you sit down at the little two person table in the corner of the shop. You feel your phone vibrate a few times in your pocket, but you opt to ignore it instead. They can wait; you told Amethyst you were just going out, and your brain can really only deal with so much right now. Namely food, and hyping yourself up to talk to Lars about this.

A few cars pass out on the street outside, and your eyes are glued to the bright blue sky and those giant fluffy clouds that are floating idly by. You take another bite out of the roll, savoring the way the buttery crust melts on your tongue. The song changes to one particular pop number that you hate, and you aren’t even irritated about it. You find yourself having missed the small things.

You hear footsteps approaching from behind you, and Lars sets down two cups of black coffee with a cream puff in front of you. Eh. You’ll deal with the coffee being black with no sweetner for it.

“So,” He sits down, taking a sip of coffee. “I’m gonna need you to elaborate. Was there some kind of freak accident or something?”

You take a sip of coffee before answering, staring at the new plugs in his ears. They’re filled with stars, and it’s kind of cute. Looks nice on him.

“You want a short version, or the whole thing? Because there’s a lot.” You say, exhaling out a long breath. The coffee is good, despite the bitterness.

He looks around his shop for a second, shrugging when his eyes fall back on you. “Business has been extremely slow all day, I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Okay. Well..  _ technically _ this was yesterday? Ish? It’s been a blur. Anyway..”

You find yourself opening up to him more than you did with the others, and you think it’s because he might be the only person who maybe understands how you feel in this moment. Human, thrown into too much space bullshit just to try to survive.

“..and yeah. That’s about all of it.” You finish, taking a small sip of your coffee. 

Lars puts his face in his hands, sighing exaggeratedly. He’s been patiently listening this entire time, which is surprising for him.

“I need more coffee for this.” He says, getting up immediately to do so. It takes him a minute, but he comes back with a fresh cup for you both, and you’re thankful for it.

“Thanks.” You take a sip, and it’s nearly hot enough to burn your tongue.

“You know, I wouldn’t believe half the shit you just said if I didn’t actually know you. That’s nuts and utterly awful, even for it having to do with more gem bullshit.” He takes a drink, eyes roaming your face and hair. 

“Yeah. I know.” You reply. “But what is life around Steven if not life-threatening and ridiculous?  _ You _ know how it goes.”

“Yeahhh.. you’re telling me. Oh, has Amethyst texted you since your ‘incident’ earlier?” He asks, lifting his hands to do the air quotations with his index fingers.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’ve ignored every notification that has popped up on my phone since leaving the house earlier.” You feel another buzz ironically inside your pocket. Ugh.

“You can’t ignore all your problems forever you know, you should probably text them back sooner rather than later. I’m sure they’re worried about you.”

“I’ll get to it in a bit.” You say with a huff.

“Hm.. it’s kind of funny how I’ve also been stranded against my will somewhere away from civilization, now that I think about it. It just wasn’t with an alien.. and it was at least on Earth.”

“Yeah that’s a weird coincidence, I didn’t even realize.” You feel half your face perk in a wry smile. “You’re lucky you had Sadie instead of Spinel though, Sadie’s.. so much nicer.” He rolls his eyes at that. “Can I ask you something Lars? If you don’t mind.”

“Yeah? Of course.” He replies, perking an eyebrow in question.

“How did you deal with dying? Or uh, anything of what happened to you in space?” You avoid his eyes for a moment, looking out the window. You can see the heat rising off the pavement from here.

“Oh, god.” You hear him take another drink of his coffee. “Not well, at first. The off-colors helped me tremendously in dealing with my problems. I’m pretty  _ whatever _ about the whole thing now, honestly. I take it day by day, and keeping busy doing what I love at this shop is helping. Also, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, as thankful as I am to be alive.” He points to his pink hair and face with his index finger, raising an eyebrow. “I hate the looks I get when I leave Beach City.”

“I’ll get used to it in time, probably. Still surprised when I look in the mirror." You sigh. You fix your eyes on the cup in front of you. “I also don’t want the gems to worry about me, and about what happened.”

“It’s something that took me quite a while to get used to. You’re wayyy more adaptable than I am, though, so I’m sure you’ll be a little quicker with it.” He says, running a hand through his hair and taking another drink of his coffee. “I’m sure they’ll worry about you regardless, and there isn’t really anything you can do about it. Kinda happens when they consider you family. Also, you’ve been through a lot. This isn’t just, like, breaking a leg or something.”

“I made the best of a shitty situation, and I’m alive and okay, it really isn’t a huge deal. I don’t want them walking on eggshells around me, or coddling me. I hate that. I’m not seventeen and stupid anymore.” 

Lars stares at you like you’re definitely seventeen and stupid, expression that says  _ ‘I cannot believe you right now.’ _

“You’re literally traumatized, you fucking idiot.” He says, completely exasperated. “Stop acting like what you’ve been through is as common as the cold. It isn’t. It’s going to take you time, and  _ them _ some time. Talk to them if you’re that bothered with it.”

You shrug at him, affronted. “It’s whatever. I just want a normal life again.” Is what you hear coming out of your mouth. 

“Your life stopped being normal the moment you accepted that babysitting job with the gems.” He rolls his eyes at you again, and you wanna kick him under the table. Just a little. “How are the gems dealing with Spinel by the way? I bet they thought they’d never have to fight another gem again, sheesh.”

“I was a little worried, but I think they’ll be fine honestly. They’ve dealt with worse. It probably helped that I was there to defend and vouch for her, really.” Someone passes the shop window, distracting your eyes for a second. A beat or two goes by, another car speeds down the street, and you wonder how Spinel’s doing right now. You hope Steven works his friendship magic on her, and you hope they become quick friends. They’re kind of like, two of the most important people to you.  _ Oh, fuck. _ You think to yourself.  _ Quick question, self? When the fuck did Spinel become that important to you? What the hell? Was it somewhere between hating her and dying for her?! _ You get the feeling you’re being watched all of a sudden so you look back over to Lars, and he’s studying your face with enough concentration to make you nervous.

“I feel like you’re still sitting on something that you want to talk about, but you’re too chickenshit to say it.” He says, full seriousness. You break eye contact, looking at your cup of coffee instead and sigh.

You and Lars have never been what you’d call  _ good _ friends. Recently he’s been a lot better and you can actually talk to him like he’s a peer since he came back from space, but he used to be such a dick to Steven that you basically hated him, and you never hid that. You have no idea how he can see through you so well. 

“How can you even tell?”   
  


“Your posture isn’t relaxed whatsoever. You’ve been sitting like someone strapped a yard stick to your spine.” He answers bluntly. “You’re normally a sloucher.”

“Don’t read me like that ever again.” You scowl. “I’m sitting on it because I’m not sure I want to verbalize it out loud, okay? And I haven’t talked to anyone about it..” You say, ignoring his pointed look at you.

“Y/N, unless you’re going to say that you want to move back in with your shitty parents, or that all of a sudden you believe in the existence of saint nicholas, it can’t be that strange to say considering everything  _ else _ you’ve said.” He leans his chin on his hand, nudging his coffee cup slightly with his fingers. You think, maybe.. maybe you can trust him with this too. Another shadow passes by the window, but you ignore it in favor of the swirling thoughts in your head.

“I have feelings for Spinel,” You blurt out with about as much grace as ripping off a band-aid; just as he takes another drink of his coffee. He chokes on it, sputtering everywhere - the entry door swings open with a chime and a customer walks in. He stands up suddenly, coughing into his hand.

“Give me just a second,” He says, turning to the customer, and rushes away from the table to go cough violently into the sink behind the counter.

The customer stares at him.

“Are you open?” They ask, even though they just came through the open, unlocked bakery door. You know, with the clearly printed hours on the glass.

He gives a thumbs up, coughing into the sink again and wiping his face.

“Yeah, just come up to the counter and I’ll help you out.” He says, a few coughs coming out here and there. He gives you a particular look from across the shop, and you’re not sure how to interpret it. 

Your heart is beating wildly out of nervousness, and you kind of regret your honesty a little. Having feelings for a gem can’t be..  _ that _ weird. Right? Today is taking its toll on you already, and you’ve only been awake for a few short hours. You tune out Lars and the customer’s interactions, and pull out your phone instead. You should answer your messages. 

You can kind of see the customer glancing at you in the corner, and you try ignoring it. You answer Amethyst messages first to let her know that you’re fine.

[02:48] Amethyst: dude, dont just leave

[02:48] Amethyst: esp after something like that   
[02:48] Amethyst: im worried about you, you know you can talk to me about stuff if you want

[02:48] Amethyst: or if u want a lounge buddy for distractions ig 

[02:48] Amethyst: im here.

You feel bad that you rushed out like that on her, but you couldn’t stand in that kitchen anymore and you needed to be anywhere else but right there.

[05:32] Y/N: I’m fine, Amethyst.. I just needed some air.

[05:32] Y/N: Your concern is appreciated. Really.

[05:32] Y/N: Just needed to run away for a bit.

[05:32] Y/N: And I know. Thank you.

The customer talking to Lars is asking way too many questions about the gluten in the fruit fritters, and you can feel Lars’ annoyance from here. You see replies from Steven, and read those next. 

[03:10] Steven: Of  _ course _ I’m your favorite, who else has this Universe charm? ;)

[03:10] Steven: I’m gonna pick up pizza for us later, you deserve some good food after all of this, lol.

[03:10] Steven: And what’s Amethyst saying about not letting you help me out?

[03:10] Steven: Are you not resting like I told you to? I said to take it easy. I know we were planning on adding in a bunch of new classes and recruiting more people to teach them, but I can have Pearl help me out with that. Maybe Buck. He owes me a big favor anyway.

[03:10] Steven: It doesn’t matter, I was gonna tell you to take the next week for yourself anyway, because you need to chill.

[03:11] Steven: I’ll be home in a couple hours, and if you wanted to cancel wednesday movie night, I understand. :(

You stare at your phone, trying to not be irritated like you want to. You don’t want to be replaced, responsibility-wise. You  _ like  _ helping Steven out. It makes you feel useful, and if you aren’t being useful, what’s the point. You feel like no matter what you say to him, he won’t care though. He’s really stubborn like that. You’ll take the next few days off for yourself regardless.

[05:35] Y/N: I’m just out rn okay, didn’t want to be cooped up at home. I went out for a walk because of how much I missed the sand.

[05:35] Y/N: And no, I think I need movie night now more than ever lol. Kinda just don’t want to lay around in bed.

Mere seconds pass of you replying to his texts, and he’s answered you back.

[05:35] Steven: Want it to just be the two of us, or would you be okay with me inviting Spinel and the others? 

[05:36] Steven: I might’ve hyped up Princess Diaries to her earlier, and well, this may be an easy way for her to be more.. at ease with everyone.

Oh thank god he asked. You didn’t want to seem desperate for her presence enough to suggest it. Also, he’s not wrong. You smile slightly to yourself as you reply to him.

[05:36] Y/N: Please do. :) That sounds fun.

Lars and the customer are now going back and forth about prices. You know he can handle himself, clearly, but you keep an ear perked in case this person goes full on karen-mode. You open Spinel’s messages last.

[02:52] Spinel: oops that wasnt what i was trying to send

[02:52] Spinel: [attachment received]

It’s another blurry picture, but it’s a candid shot of Pearl making a funny face while criticizing Steven about something. It’s actually fucking hilarious. You kinda want to send it to Amethyst.

[02:52] Spinel: shes been like this the last five minutes

[02:52] Spinel: its fun to watch

[02:52] Spinel: earth’s organisms are fun though so far

[02:53] Spinel: steven threw some food at the birds and i almost caught one

[02:53] Spinel: it  _ pecked _ me 

You try not to laugh out loud at the mental image, wishing desperately that you could’ve seen this.

[05:36] Y/N: I was going to ask why, except I know the answer to that already. You deserved being pecked, stop heckling local wildlife you fucking birdbrain

Before you can type up another message, you hear the door jingle again as the customer leaves - drawing you out of looking directly at only your phone. You must’ve tuned out the last of their interactions, because Lars is standing in front of the table with crossed arms.

He’s staring at you, half an eyebrow perked; like he’s trying to read your mind. You can hear his foot tapping on the cold tile floor. You are not going to lie to yourself - if you could get up and abscond, you’d do exactly just that. He suddenly whips his arm out, placing it upon the back of your chair.

“Don’t even think about running away from this conversation, Y/N.” He says, the radio crackling a bit in the background. 

“Why would you think I want to run, Lars?” You avoid his eyes out of nervousness.

“Because I can see it in your eyes.” He plops back down in his seat, and sighs. His eyes haven’t moved from his gaze on you. “So. What the actual fuck?”

“Look. I didn’t even realize that I had these feelings until a couple days ago.. technically. Days on Golgotha. Not here, I mean.” 

He brings his hand up to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose in disbelief and scrunching his eyes. “You’re telling me.. that you have  _ feelings _ for a gem that tried to kill Steven and yourself, after being stuck on a different planet with her for weeks?”

You’re staring at him, unmoving. A second or three passes.

“Don’t put it so plainly out there like that..” You groan. “I already feel stupid about this.”

“I’ve known you for  _ years _ now, and you’ve refused any kind of prospect of romance. I watched you turn down several people, including fucking JENNY of all people. Where the hell is this coming from!?” God he’s so worked up about this that he’s half talking with his hands.

“Yeah because I was busy with Steven! Also I just wasn’t ..interested in anyone.” You level him with a look, slightly miffed about all of this.

_ “What made her different?!” _

“I DON’T KNOW!” You hear your voice raise, heart beating wildly in your chest. You can feel the adrenaline running through you. “At first I  _ thought _ it was because she didn’t treat me like a fragile meatbag! Or maybe because she took my shit and  _ threw it back at me!! _ AND THEN SHE STARTED TO GET ALL CARING, LIKE, SHE ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT MY WELL-BEING? GENUINELY? And she  _ wanted _ to be my friend EVEN after I treated her like shit!”

“Oh,  _ my god. _ You DO have feelings for her!!!” He shouts accusingly, pointing his finger directly at you.

“I WASN’T  _ LYING _ YOU IDIOT.” 

“Well?! What are you going to do about it?!” He implores, leaning into the table - practically knocking off his half cup of coffee.

“Nothing, probably,” You say, avoiding his eyes again.

“You’re joking.”

“What if I’ve been reading signals all weird, and she thinks humans are super gross?”

He levels you with a Look, one you deem The Judgemental Gaze of Judgement. He sighs for like the fifth time this conversation.

“Ugh! Give me your phone.”

_ “NO.”  _

“Let me talk to her!” 

“DEFINITELY NO.” You hear your own voice echo throughout the room.

“Okay, so, you’re just going to steep in your own feelings and pretend you don’t have them? Really, Y/N?” 

“Well.. no. Maybe. I don't know.”

“You’re being stupid.” He says with a roll of his eyes. “What are you  _ actually  _ afraid of?”

“...what if she can only see me as a friend?” You reply, a bit nervously. 

“It’s not the worst thing ever, honestly. At least she’d still be your friend, take it from me..” He glances at his phone on the table for a moment, a notification popping up. “But I don’t know. I haven’t met her yet, but if she’s everything you’ve said to me so far.. I think you might be a little dumb about this.”

“I’m not saying you’re right, but I’ll keep it in mind.” 

“If I happen to see her in the next week, I’m telling her if you haven’t by then.” He says with a perk of his eyebrow, tone half mocking. 

“If I catch wind of that happening I’ll set your shop on fire.” You reply, deadpan. His eyes get large.

“No arson!” He points to the center of your torso, like this would be a thing you’d actually do. “Anyway, I gotta get back to making a new batch of what I dropped earlier before the delivery I’m supposed to receive in an hour gets here. You’re welcome to stay if you wanna help me out. I had 3 part timers quit in the last month.”

“Bet they left because you suck at being a manager.” You say, pocketing your cell phone and standing up. “And as much as I’d like to keep busy right now, it’s best I be getting back soon anyway.”

“I’m a great manager, for the record! Just unlucky. Thankfully the off-colors help out plenty, even if most of them are preoccupied doing things for themselves now. Let me know if you know anyone that wants any part time hours? I’m flexible.” He also stands up, pushing his chair in and grabbing both cups of coffee - now empty. He gives you a look before smiling a little. “I’m glad you’re alive and well, Y/N. And really. Talk to Spinel. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, you’ll feel a lot better getting it off your chest.”

“Yeah, yeahhhhhh. We’ll see.” You reply with an eye roll, and head out the door.

-

On your way home you stop by the boardwalk by Funland. The sun is beating down on you, but you don’t really mind this heat. It isn’t nearly as humid as on the surface of that awful place. It’s almost lovely compared to it. You sit on one of the nearby benches to zone out for a couple minutes, watching people and their dogs pass by as you internally fight yourself. 

You should talk to Spinel. You think briefly that you should just text her about it, and then immediately swat that thought away. That’s the cowards route. Get it the fuck together. You’ve been through so much shit already, and you’re this hung up on your feelings. Also, Spinel deserves a lot more than just a stupid text.

Oh my godddd, you do not want to put too much thought into this shit, it will just make you even more anxious around her. Ugh. Seriously, you've been through waaay more anxiety inducing scenarios than this, what's your deal? You feel your phone vibrate with a notification, and you pull it up to see that it’s a message from Steven saying that they’ll be home soon. It’s a bit after six by now, and you send him a reply saying that you’ll see him there.

The distant sounds of the crashing waves of the ocean put you at ease. You pocket your phone, and you notice Mr. Smiley talking to a couple kids with cotton candy forty feet away or so. He sees you, and you can see his eyebrows raise in confusion all the way over from here.

Ugh. You’re kind of tired of explaining what’s happened to you. You get up and leave to avoid any kind of conversation about it, opting to just go straight home instead.

-

You take your flip flops off as you walk through the sand up to Steven’s house. It’s warm, and the salty sea breeze tickles your skin. It’s making you a little reluctant to go up the stairs. You’re halfway up when you hear muffled voices coming from inside, quite a few actually. The rest of them must have got here before you did, oops. You hope they don’t implore too much about where you’ve been and why it’s taken so long.

Once you open the front door you feel a couple eyes turn to you, and you swallow the weird anxiety in your gut. 

“Y/N!” Peridot shouts from across the room, and you set your flip flops down on the ground near the door. “Jeez, took you long enough to get home.”

“Sorry, I took the long way home.” You reply, seeing her with Bismuth, Lapis and Pearl all chatting animatedly about something on the couch with each other. 

“You guys only got here a couple minutes ago anyway.” Amethyst snorts, walking into the kitchen after she gives you a discreet look-over to make sure you’re visibly okay. 

“Yeah but she’s the last one here, and that means she gets cleanup duty!” She retorts, giving you a pointed smirk from across the room.

“I feel like I should be exempt from cleaning duty for the next couple of weeks.” You walk over to the kitchen where Steven and Spinel are talking to Garnet about something, and your heart does this stupid,  _ stupid _ little flip when you see her with the others. Her eyes gravitate over to you as she’s talking, something sparkling in them when she sees that it’s  _ you _ \- and tears her eyes away back to the others quickly.

What the hell. That was kinda weird. Steven looks over to you, and then to Peridot after he hears you. 

“I’ve volunteered to take over her responsibilities this week, anyway, so suck it Peridot.” He says, sticking his tongue out at her childishly. 

“You mean it?” You reply, feeling immense amounts of affection bubbling up inside for him. 

“Yeah, well, you’re not wrong about being exempt for now. Also I just love you.” He grins, shrugging at you. You walk over to his side, ruffling his thick brown curls.

“Steeeeven, what would I do without you?” You say, and you see Spinel watching you out of the corner of her eye as Garnet talks to her. “I miss when you were shorter than me, who am I supposed to use as a chinrest now? Amethyst? She’s too short.”

“ _ Hey!” _ Amethyst huffs, flipping some of her hair over her shoulder. “Being this short is one of my best qualities.”

“I thought it was your obnoxious personality?” You raise an eyebrow in mockery at her.

“I thought that was  _ yours.” _ You hear Spinel say as your heart jumps into your throat, and you whip your face to hers.

_ “You _ of all people cannot say that to me!” You hiss out at her automatically without missing a beat, and the others burst out laughing. Even Garnet. You feel your face heat up as Spinel grins, and whatever thoughts you had about her acting weird earlier vanish. When the laughter dies down, Steven looks over to her.

“I’ve gotta say, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that talks to Y/N that way and gets away with it.” He says, still smiling and shaking his head.

“Really?” Her eyes light up at that, and she gives you a particular look that makes you want to smack her. “I guess I must be kinda  _ special _ or somethin’.”

“No, you’re just too stupid to realize when I’m telling you off.” You reply, and she splutters with a glare while the others laugh boisterously again. 

It’s good to be in this kind of company again, you think. 

Steven grabs the three boxes of pizza on the counter that you just noticed were there. The smell is very enticing. “Since we’re all here, I’m gonna go set up the movie so I can finally eat because I am starrrrrving.” He says, dragging it on a bit dramatically as he walks up the stairs over to his loft bed. “You guys can join whenever!”

You follow him immediately, mainly because you want food. Also, Spinel’s looking at you in a way that makes you hyper aware of literally every single thing you’re doing, and you need to sit down and calm yourself before you have some kind of self-induced heart attack.    
  


“You wanna sit on the bed? You get first pick since.. y’know.” He looks at you, setting the pizza boxes down on the floor by the foot of his bed.

“Nah, I want the beanbag.” You say as the others make their way up here, and you grab said seat from the corner of his room, dragging it to the spot you want on the far left opposite of the stairs and next to Steven’s bed. Peridot likes to throw things during dramatic moments and you’d prefer to not be placed in the crossfire again.

“Suuuit yourself.” He says, popping the dvd case open and inserting the disk into the system below the tv. Amethyst plops on his bed with a satisfied sigh, rolling over to the edge to grab a slice from the boxes on the floor. 

The rest of them come in, finding places to sit and lounge - all of them as loud as ever. You see Spinel off to the side by Pearl, and she looks like she doesn’t know where to sit. Eventually her eyes land on you - your heart doing a little flip, and you make a point to pat the ground next to you. Her eyes light up instantly. Not like you saved a seat for her or anything.

She gets over to you - having to stretch her leg waaay over to the side of the multiple gems in the center of the room making a commotion loudly over who gets to sit in front of the tv. She sits down next to you; wrapping her arms around her knees, her body language a little more at ease beside you than she was earlier.

You ignore your brain screaming about the implications. Just act normal, fucking idiot.

“You have fun today?” You turn your face to ask her, Bismuth bellowing out a laugh at something behind you.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting them to be so.. welcoming.” She says a bit quietly so the others don’t hear, pulling her gloved hand up to scratch at her cheek sheepishly. “I still don’t feel like I deserve this.” 

“Well, you do.” You lean forward, grabbing a slice of pizza and a napkin. “So you better get used to it.” Before you even take a bite, you notice her staring at you. Steven’s cursing out the dvd player for giving him issues, and Pearl’s tutting him for his language. “What? You wanna try?”

“No. It just looks weird.” She replies, scrunching her face.

“Spinel.” You look at her, deadpan. “Unless you try it, you don’t get to judge pizza. Even Amethyst likes it.” You take a bite, melty cheese easily pulling off the slice. Her eyes go kinda wide, watching you - and then her face gets suspiciously smug.

“Wow, what  _ is _ that? Kinda similar to how much I can stretch-” You give her a kick with your bare foot, and she chokes out a laugh. You roll your eyes, taking another bite. Her constant teasing makes your heart grow fonder, and that fact irritates you.

“Finally!” Steven says, pressing the play button on the menu. Guess he finally got it to work. He sits on his bed where his pillows are, Amethyst up at the front. The others are lounging around the rest of the room as the volume dies down.

The movie starts to play, and you settle comfortably in your beanbag. Once you’re done adjusting yourself, Spinel leans half her side and props her elbow up on your chair, resting her chin on her hand. She’s close enough to where you can feel the heat emanating off her slightly. She’s most comfortable around you, clearly. 

You’ve seen the princess diaries many, many times as it’s one of Steven’s favorite movies - he starts singing ‘stupid cupid’ and you join along, earning a wink from him. Spinel makes comments here and there about the absurdities of royalty here, and several human traditions that the other gems laugh and nod in agreement. She seems to like it though, as she laughs pretty hard at a couple scenes.

You're content, you feel. You didn't think you'd get to experience this like, ever, with her.

Two thirds through the movie and several slices of pizza later, you notice Spinel watching you more than the movie out of the corner of your eye. You try not to be self-conscious about it, but you wish you could ask her if you have something on your face without alerting the others around you. She lays her arm down on your beanbag, parallel to yours resting against your thigh; and you have a quiet moment of panic because your immediate thought is to grab her hand and hold it.

Okay. You need to calm the fuck down, first of all. You’re getting way ahead of yourself. Also, the thought of anyone of them seeing that makes you want to run outside into the ocean to never return. You spend the rest of this movie consumed with so many thoughts about Spinel beside you that you don’t realize that the movie has already ended with the credits rolling, and the others are chatting and stretching their limbs from their stationary positions on the floor.

“Okay, do we want to watch another movie, or call it a night guys?” Steven asks, and a few of the others immediately all say they want to watch another movie. 

“Okay but what exactly are we watching?” You turn your face to look at him. “Because I don’t want to watch the sequel.”

“But I loooooooooove the sequel!!!” He cries out, putting a hand on his chest in mock offense. “It has Chris Pine’s dreamy eyes!”

“There’s another one?” Spinel interjects, raising an eyebrow. “But they didn’t really leave room for continuation.”

“Exactly my point.” You reply. “It’s a bad sequel.”

“It’s not! You just hate good fun!” Steven whines.

“I kinda wanna watch it. I like the part when she pushes him into the fountain.” Amethyst chuckles, stuffing a room-temperature slice of pizza into her mouth in a single bite.

“Sweet! Then we’re watching it.” He says smugly, getting up to change the dvd out.

“You’re so biased it’s not even funny.” You groan, flopping your head back on the beanbag dramatically. “Next time  _ I _ get to pick.”

“No! You always pick horror movies!” You see Steven whip his head towards you from the corner of your eye.

_ “Alien _ is a classic though. And besides, you always pick fucking romantic comedies my guy.” You retort.

“Yeah, how can you not get enough of them?” He sighs happily. “They always end good.”

“Alien ends good..” You pout, and hear him snort a little. “The cat lives.”

The movie starts, and you try to not zone out after the first ten minutes. Spinel makes several comments about  _ ‘who the fuck is this guy? Where’s that guy she kissed in the last movie?’  _ and you get the joy of being the one to explain to her that sometimes, sequels are just Like That.

An hour or so in of you only half paying attention to the movie, and you think you see Spinel’s eyes droop.

Is she.. is she tired?

Another twenty minutes pass, and yeah, she’s definitely tired. She’s leaning against her hand on your beanbag again, a mere foot or so from yourself. You catch her drifting off a little - hand slipping - quietly startling herself awake. It’s so cute. You’ve never seen her this sleepy before. It’s strange, gems don’t get tired.. You think, briefly, of what that might imply. When was the last time she slept, you wonder? You worry a little about it - clearly she needs some rest if she’s nodding off right here. 

By the time the movie is done and the credits are rolling, she’s got half her head curled into her arm that’s digging into your side, completely asleep. It makes your heart swell to see her like this. Steven turns his bedside lamp on, illuminating most of the room in a warm glow.

“Well! I’m beat.” He says, grinning and turning his face to you. “Did Spinel like the movies?”

“I’d ask her, but..” You look at him, shrugging and pointing to her.

“Is she  _ asleep?” _ He whispers, some of the others looking over in your direction and away from their quiet conversations. For some reason your heart rate speeds up.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting her to pass out. It isn’t really like her to be this tired.” You reply. Your legs are numb from lack of circulation, and you stretch them out in front of you.

“Spinel.. sleeps?” An eyebrow shoots up into his hairline that has you feeling strange about what you had just said.

“I mean, yeah? It’s not that weird, Amethyst does it sometimes.” 

“Yeah, that’s because I’m just lazy. But you don’t see me sleeping on  _ you.” _ Amethyst chuckles lowly, a slow grin spreading on her face. 

“What the hell are you implying?” You ask, feeling your face start to heat up. 

“Nothing! She must trust you a lot is all, sleeping like that.” She laughs a little. “She looks kind of like a lapdog.”

“Don’t call her a dog, jeez.” You roll your eyes, pushing down the blush on your face. 

“Look at  _ you, _ defending her even when she can’t defend herself, when earlier you were so easy to insult her.” Pearl says from across the room, putting a finger to her lip and looking smug. “You know…”

“Alright, enough picking on Y/N. I wanna go to bed.” Steven says with a yawn, and the others file out of his loft down the stairs without much of a fight.

“Does she have a bed in her new place?” You watch her shoulders rise and fall with her breathing.

“No, er, she has a bedroom though. Wasn’t expecting her to be the sleeping type, honestly. I’ll get with Bismuth tomorrow about it. Shouldn’t take long, though. She can sleep on the couch tonight if anything.” He says, taking his socks off and flinging them across the other side of his room into the pile of laundry he has there.

"Alright." You say, thinking about several things at once. Hm. She looks so soft right now, and it's taking like, all of your self control to not stroke her head. It sucks that you've got to wake her. 

Steven gets up to go to the bathroom and brush his teeth before sleeping, and makes a comment about his floor better not ‘be occupied’ when he comes back. You roll your eyes, smiling at him fondly. You love his teen attitude.

Very gently, you shake Spinel's shoulders a little. You're actually surprised when she lifts her head a little, slow blinking and confusion all over her face. She's got lines pressed into her face where she slept a little too hard against her arm. It's extremely endearing. 

"Did I pass out?" She asks, rubbing her eyes but still looking very drowsy.

"Yeah. We finished the other movie. The others went off on their own, and Steven's going to sleep."

You lead the gem down the stairs, careful to not let her sleep-heavy self trip. You sit her on the couch, and walk away to grab the spare blankets from the cupboard for her. You pass Steven coming out of the bathroom on your way back over, him giving the both of you a peace sign and telling you to get decent sleep. He also apologises to Spinel in case she hears any snoring coming from him.

Once he’s out of sight, you place the spare blankets and pillow next to her on the couch. 

“Are you gonna be okay out here? Let me know if you need anything.” Leaning your hands on your hips, you give her a quick look-over. She’s tired, clearly, but a little more awake than before.

She looks at you hesitantly, like she wants to say something, but is unsure how.

"What?" You whisper at her. "Is there something wrong?"

"Um.." She looks away momentarily, like she's nervous to admit something. It's making you anxious.

"Spit it out, Spinel." You say, and it comes out a little harsher than intended. 

"I don't know if I can sleep. I've had.. really bad nightmares every time I've tried, so I stopped trying. It's been weeks.." She trails off, avoiding your eyes. "That nap earlier was the most solid sleep I've had in a while."

Oh. You.. you weren't expecting her to say that. You feel horrible about it, actually..

"Do you want to sleep with me?" You hear the words coming out of your mouth, horrified at what it kind of implied. "I-I mean, um, maybe having another person next to you might help you sleep?" You quickly correct yourself, feeling your face heat up in mortification. Yeah yeah idiot, ask the gem to  _ sleep _ with you god what the hell is wrong with you.

Thankfully, you think she’s too tired to really catch on to that, as she kind of looks a little.. sheepish when her eyes lock on to yours.

“You’re not just sayin’ that, right? To be nice?” You think you see her wring her hands nervously in her lap, and you’re confused by it. Why the hell is  _ she _ nervous?

"You think I'm purposefully  _ nice?" _

"Well.." She gives you a look. 

"Come on." You say with a sigh. "My bed is big enough for the both of us, and it's comfier than this couch." 

She follows you to your bedroom, and your heartbeats pick up pace. Calm down. Sure, this is like, completely new territory for the both of you. She's seen where you live, what you're like around other people, and now she's about to see your room. It almost feels.. strangely intimate. You have no idea why this particular thought puts you on edge. Like you're.. waiting on something. 

You open your bedroom door, the both of you shuffling inside and closing the door behind you with a solid  _ click. _ She looks around at the walls, intrigued by many of the things you've put up as decoration. You watch her for a moment, your brain repeating the words  _ 'Spinel is in my bedroom' _ like a mantra.

"Hmmm." Is all she says, and you feel a little insulted for some reason.

"Why do I feel like you're making fun of me by saying that?"

"I like it. Reminds me of you." She gives you a cheeky smile, and you don't know if you'd rather slap her or kiss her.

All of a sudden you realize you're alone with her, like actually  _ alone, _ without anyone having the ability to hear you. Not that there is anything to hear..

You shake your skull, dismissing the thoughts in your head. You're not going there today, brain. It's time to sleep.

"Before I lay down, I'm gonna change into better clothes. Make yourself comfortable." You say as you walk over to your closet, and immediately grab a tank top because you know you'll be warm. You also grab another pair of shorts. You make quick work of going out to the bathroom to change and to brush your teeth, and by the time you get back to your bedroom, she's looking at all the photostrips you have with Steven.

You pull back your blankets, sitting down on the surface of your bed and setting your phone on your nightstand.

"Aren't you tired?" You say with a yawn, and she turns to you. 

"Very." She's halfway to the bed when you stop her before she gets in, and she gives you a perplexed look.

"This is gonna sound weird, but I don't want you in my bed wearing those."

"My..  _ clothes?" _ She gives you a look, half a grin forming on her face - her canines shining a little in the dim light of your bedroom. "Are 'ya saying you want me in there naked?"

"No, stupid! It's just, you wear those clothes  _ everywhere _ , and it feels unsanitary to-"

"Yeah, yeah, calm down you brat. I get it.” She gets this kind of.. excited look on her face, eyes brightening. “Am I gonna get to steal your clothes then?”

“Pick whatever you want from my closet I guess.” You say, and watch her rifle through your clothes.

“You have a lot of sweaters in here.” 

“Sweaters are comfy. They’re my favorite thing to wear.” You state, the feeling of being on edge still fully not going away. 

It’s strange, being this casual with her. Like you didn’t meet her under the circumstances you did, and didn’t go through all of that with her either. You haven’t really had many close friends in your life, but you like to think that if you had met her differently, you’d still eventually form some kind of tentative.. friendship, or whatever you call this, with her. Halfway friends, halfway something else. See now you’re just being too hopeful, because technically she hasn’t brought up feelings at all. Or that kiss. Or whatever the fuck she was going to say before she left you on the hill.

“-were you wanting to  _ watch _ me change, or should I go to the bathroom?” You’re torn out of your thoughts by the sound of her voice, and you feel your face heat up as you tear your eyes away. How embarrassing. It's not like she can read your thoughts though, right? 

“Was spacing, sorry. I’ll look away.” You keep your face turned towards your phone, checking the time and thinking momentarily about setting an alarm. You hear the shuffling sounds of moving fabric and boots hitting the ground, and forego the alarm altogether. Who’re you kidding yourself, you’re not waking up early. 

Before you realize it, she’s pulling the covers away on the other side of you and you feel a weight dipping into the mattress beside you. You're getting jitters in your stomach as you turn to catch her eye, because she's got one of your oversized Sadie Killer band tees on that's large enough that the top half of her gem is peeking out, and her hair isn't up in twintails anymore and now you're just staring at this point. The fact that you can see the entirety of her neck as well as the area around her collarbones has you feeling  _ some _ way that you just know is absolutely showing on your face. You've never seen her show this much skin.

"What.." She gets this sort of stubbornly shy look when she realizes you're staring at her, her cheeks coloring faintly. She looks so different like this.. vulnerable, mostly. She doesn't have her gloves on, and you're pretty sure she's wearing a pair of your shorts as well because you can see her bare legs. "Is there something on my face? Don't give me that look."

"No, I just wasn't expecting to see you with your hair down."

"It doesn't look weird does it? I wasn't-"

"Shut up, you look cute.. and very non-threatening." You say, throwing in the jab with a bit of a smirk.

She rolls her eyes, scowling a bit. You think you see her cheeks darken ever so slightly, but it could also be a trick of the dim light in your room and the lines on her cheeks. You'd love to see just how far you can push those buttons of hers sometime. The look on her face when she's frustrated is probably one of your favorites, but you'd only ever admit that to yourself.

"Oh,  _ I'll _ show you threatening.." She replies with a glint in her eye, the corner of her lips twitching. 

"Pfft, go to sleep. You're about as threatening as a chihuahua." You retort, feeling that smirk grow a little wider, but also seeing her reach for her cell phone. "Spinel, I forbid you from looking that up until the morning."

"Ugg _ ggggghhhh,  _ you can't tell me what to do!" She flops down onto the bed next to you, magenta hair messily all around her head. She fixes it with a huff, giving you a dirty look that you find amusing as you lower yourself into the blankets you're sharing with her. "If I wasn't so tired I'd fight you."

"Oh, I'm sure." You reply with a chuckle, turning to the center of the bed to face her.

She turns her head to look at you, face drawn in a glare and yet her eyes are so very warm. Your eyes are caught here with hers for a moment, and you feel your breath catch in your throat. Two.. three seconds pass, and you're pretty sure she's looking at your mouth. She looks like she's about to say something, her lips parting ever so slightly.

And then she flops over to her other side, and you're left laying there wondering what in the fuck was that.

Ugh. You hate girls. And aliens.

"Don't let me sleep forever." She mumbles, and you lean over to your lamp to switch it off.

"No promises." The room is blanketed in darkness in a single click, and you switch on your salt lamp before leaning your head down on your pillow, back flat against the bed. There's still a tiny bit of light coming from the glow of the moon through the blinds, and you pull your blanket up to your chest. You try getting comfortable, and it's.. fairly difficult when you're hyper aware of the person next to you.

"Would it be too much to ask if you could.. y'know.." You hear her say, almost too quiet for you to hear. You think your heart does a little backflip inside your chest.

"Are you asking me to  _ cuddle _ you?!" You reply, barely being able to hold the mirth in your voice back.

You hear her sigh aggravatingly, and you roll over to put an arm around her waist before she can protest. 

"You are so annoying." She spits out.

"Whatever. I knew you liked being the little spoon." You grin smugly behind her back, siphoning all the warmth from her as you can. Your knees are almost hitting the back of hers, and because of how squishy your bed is, this is the closest you think you've ever been to her as you're basically flush with her body. It's comfortable, and intimate, and you're trying to not think about how easy it'd be to just.. confess your feelings to her.

_ "Shut it."  _ You hear her say; and you just know she's rolling her eyes even if you can't see her, and smiling regardless. 

Silence envelops the both of you, and you're feeling sleep start to catch up with you when all of a sudden you feel her arm move, and then her soft fingers are tentatively being entwined with yours.

Your heart speeds up tremendously and all you can hear is the blood pounding in your ears. Your face is on fucking fire, and you can feel it. She  _ has _ to know that you're having an internal fucking panic right now, you're like a hundred percent sure your hand is shaking. What the fuck do you do? Are you gonna talk about this? Is this what's happening? 

A mere minute passes that feels like a lifetime of you fighting with yourself. As soon as you open your mouth to say something, you hear steady sounds of breathing coming from her.

Oh.

She's fallen asleep holding your hand.

You blow out the breath you didn't realize you were holding, and stifle the laugh that wants to come out of your mouth.

You think, maybe, that you love her.

You watch the back of her head until you get tired, and fall asleep fairly easily, her hand warm in yours.


	20. Twenty

You don't know how long you're asleep, but you do know that you're the first to wake up. You're very warm, and it takes you a while to convince yourself to open your eyes.

By the time you do, you realize your face is laying half on Spinel's chest and you're unable to move without waking her, as she's got her limbs wrapped around you solidly.

It's endearing, even if this position is a little embarrassing. You're very close to her gem, both your face and your hand. It rises and falls with her even breathing, facets of her gem shining in the low light of the salt lamp.

You find your fingers drawn to it, naturally.

It's not cold to the touch, and you knew this already. You wonder if her gem has any feeling; your fingertips tracing the tip of the point of the heart - it isn't sharp at all, not that you had thought so previously.

She takes in a particularly deep breath, and you're scared she's awake; but she keeps on breathing softly, and you do not take this opportunity to remove your hand.

Her gem is probably a little bigger than the size of your open palm, you can't tell from here. You never really paid much attention to it before, even though you had many chances to. You're absentmindedly touching her gem softly, lost in thought long enough to not realize that her breathing has died down - suddenly, a hand shoots out to grab your wrist, pulling it away from the gem entirely.

"You're playing a  _ dangerous _ game there, Y/N." Spinel says close to your ear, voice rough with sleep.

"U-um." You freeze, startled. Dangerous.. what? Your mind is racing with several different thoughts at once. "..are you telling me that your gem is sensitive?" You think out loud.

"I.. don't have to answer that." 

"You basically just admitted to it.." You reply, and she drops your hand. It lands back onto her stomach and you don’t bother to move it.

"Did not." She sighs. "It's too early for this."

"Then go back to sleep." You retort.

"No, I'm awake now thanks to your  _ fondling." _ She grunts out, and you can still hear the grogginess in her voice. 

"Ohhhh my  _ god,  _ I'm  _ so _ sorry," You say, mortified. "I-I was doing it without thinking -  _ I didn't know, _ I just thought 'hey, it's kinda shiny and you should touch it'," You ramble, completely horrified at this entire situation as you roll away from her entirely. 

Except she doesn't let you. Somehow, within a second, she's got both of your wrists pinned with her hands on either side of your face as you're flat on your back, and she's straddling your hips.

"Okay,  _ no, _ you're not running away this time." She starts, eyebrows drawn forward in frustration and her hair wildly untamed from sleep.

"This time-  _ When have I ever- _ ugh, why are you on top of me?!" You try moving your wrists, stopping your voice from raising lest the rest of the house hear; harsh whisper coming out instead. You can feel your face heating up as you realize her thighs are squeezing your hips tightly, and even if you wanted to break free you couldn’t.

"Stop  _ struggling," _ She pins your wrists in place, despite your best efforts to rip them free. "And it's because every time I try to have these kinds of conversation  _ something _ happens to prevent that,  _ including _ the terrified faces you keep giving me!"

“What  _ kinds _ of conversation!?” Oh  _ lord in heaven above _ your heart is beating so fast you think you might keel over, if Spinel isn’t sending you into an early grave. You have every feeling in your gut pointing at your bedroom door to escape, and now.

She gives you a particular look, one that you’re having a hard time deciphering. There’s a little bit of serious apprehensiveness there, mixed with curiosity and a tinge of smugness. You don’t like it. She looks like she’s mulling over something, her pupils trailing the edges of your face slowly before they meet yours again, settling there.

“I wanted to talk about that kiss back on Golgotha." 

Oh  _ god. _

You know that  _ technically _ you’ve already died, but if that could maybe happen for a second time right now that’d be swell, you think. This isn’t how you were expecting your morning to go at all. Your heart jumps into your throat, and it just like.. stays there. 

“Uh.” You stop, shutting your mouth. Wow, you idiot. Just fucking say  _ something.  _ "Which one are you referring to, exactly?" Ooh, smart.

She looks at you dumbly.

"The one that happened before you died." She replies flatly.

"Ah.." You reply, much like an intelligent person would. A couple more seconds pass before you can form an actual answer. “I needed a distraction, and that was the quickest thing I could think of.”

“Bullshit.” She squints her eyes, like she can see right through you. Which you uh.. you think she can at this point. Not that you’re going to admit it. “You just made that up and you know it.”

“I didn’t!” You argue, trying your best to focus on the matter at hand and not fixate entirely on Spinel, warm and on top of you. “I was basically using you as bait anyway.."

She looks vaguely insulted at that. "So you couldn't just,  _ I don’t know _ \- grab me? You had to  _ kiss me?!" _ She leans a little further forward, pressing both your wrists into the mattress for emphasis.

"I never said it was a good plan, just a quick one!" Too close,  _ too close, her face is too close. _ You tear your eyes and center of face away from hers, looking off to the side of your room. Your heart is pumping into overdrive, your hands are sweaty, does she even know what she's doing to you right now? You're going to faint. "I'm terribly sorry for getting up in your personal business without asking!"

"Why the fuck do you think I care about that  _ now,  _ you  _ idiot?! _ You saved my life, could I really complain even if I was!?" She spits out, face coming ever so closer to yours. It’s impossible to  _ not _ look at her, like she's trying to push all of your buttons right now. "You're being utterly  _ ridiculous." _

"I'm  _ not-"  _ You feel her grip tighten, and you attempt to get her off you again. "I'm not being ridiculous,  _ you're the one cornering me first thing in the morning!"  _ You hiss out, and she just rolls her eyes which only agitates you  _ more.  _ You're straining all your might against her grip, but no dice. You can't move.

"Okay, seriously, stop struggling." She groans, eyebrows drawing forward in frustration.

"No, why, just let me go," You struggle more, because she doesn't get to tell you what to do. 

"Not gonna happen, because I'm  _ done _ with you not talking about this," 

"About  _ WHAT, SPINEL-" _

She kisses you.

And like, you know this, because suddenly more weight is being pressed against your wrists and magenta hair thrown into your face, and your lips are no longer cold. Your brain is having a hard time comprehending what any of this even means.

She pulls away faster than you can even think to react, eyes wide, face looking like she’s surprised at herself for even doing that. “Um,”

Without even thinking about it you lean up, closing the gap between you.

As soon as your lips connect with hers she  _ sighs _ into your mouth; pressing you further into your bed. Her entire being is warm against you as your heart hammers wildly against your ribcage, and your brain is screaming so loud inside your head that you’re not even sure there’s any coherent thought there. You think, er,  _ you know _ \- your face is on fire right now.

She pulls her lips away slowly,  _ hesitantly _ even, like she wishes not to; her eyes meet yours and she blinks, letting a few seconds pass between you two.

“So you  _ do _ like me.” She says, a small toothy grin forming on her lips. You stare at her, wide eyed with an open mouth like an idiot. 

“No,” Is what comes out of your mouth. Her brows instantly draw forward in confusion.

“What do you mean _ , NO?” _ She hisses out between her teeth.

“I mean-” You think you catch her off guard, somehow - using your leg, you leverage yourself into flipping the two of you over. You pin  _ her _ hands down against the pillow behind her head, and she splutters, trying to get one up on you. “Oh, yeah,  _ you _ don’t like it when someone else does it-”

“Will ya' stop being infuriating for three seconds _ .” _ She yanks your arms forward, and you almost smash your face against hers violently before you can stop yourself. You’re hovering maybe an inch above her face when you try to jerk your arms free from her grasp; but she holds tight, and you can feel her finger tips digging into your arm.

"Will  _ you _ stop being infuriating," You groan, completely stuck in place. "I can't  _ believe _ that I love yo-"

You snap your mouth shut, her eyes going wide. 

Oh.

Yeah. That one was out loud, huh.

"What?" She says, and her voice is a little doubtful. Like  _ that  _ certainly couldn't be true.

"Er-" You hear your voice crack. Her arms are still holding you in place, but they're more frozen than anything. She looks like a deer caught in headlights. 

You feel her fingers tremble.

"Well, it's not like it's a secret or anything." You say, breath coming out in a half laugh. Oh, so we're trying to play this off casually, huh. Like your feelings aren't a big deal for you or anything. Like your chest isn't bubbling with a  _ lot _ of emotions right now. Kissing is one thing. All of your feelings, out in the open at once? Like, right now? Why the fuck not?

"You.." She trails off, blinking uncomprehendingly. Her hair is surrounding her head like a messy halo, lips looking so very soft. You'd like to kiss them again. 

"-love you, yeah." You finish for her, feeling the adrenaline run through your veins. Her face is starting to color. "I think I have for a little while actually, it just took me a hot minute to figure it out. So I'm not entirely sure how  _ you _ figured it out before I did. Unless I'm just that obvious."

"You love me?" She asks, like she still hasn’t fully comprehended your confession.

"I know you're a little blind sometimes, but you can't be deaf  _ too _ ," you jest, feeling your nerves go haywire as you babble. "Like, I wouldn't risk my life for someone I didn't really care about, first of all, so let's get that straight. Also, I didn't tolerate all of your tossing and turning and  _ squeezing _ for countless nights just because I only thought of you  _ as a friend. _ (at this point her face is solidly flustered) Like, real talk here, if I only had friend feelings for you, realistically would I have had multiple dreams about you? Wow, now that I'm thi-"

She kisses you again, cutting off your sentence completely. A wave of butterflies passes through your stomach.

You pull away, even though you don't want to. "I wasn't done."

"Don't care," She scowls, face completely red. "I've been wanting to do that for a  _ long _ time now."

"Have you?" 

"Yeah, actually." She glares at you, and you find the long black lines running down her face cuter than before, especially with her entire face flustered like this. "You couldn't tell that I've been wanting to kiss you for weeks, and you’re calling me the blind one..”

“Okay so, hold on,  _ you’ve _ been wanting to kiss me for weeks, and you haven’t? What’s your excuse!?” You hiss out, worried the both of your volumes will alert the rest of your house.

“Really?  _ Really, Y/N?” _ Her nose is barely brushing against yours. “Have you  _ met _ yourself? You probably would’ve tried maiming me.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t had a lot of experiences with this,” You feel your face glaring back at her. “And also, you’re a gem, so this is completely different territory for me.”

“Yeah well I haven’t  _ either, _ so let’s set that straight.” She all but growls out. “And you’re acting like I could’ve done anything about this, like I even had the  _ opportunity,” _

“I feel like there definitely was,” You say, half sarcastically - and she gives you this particularly  _ dirty _ look, like, if she could dangle you over that ravine again  _ she would in a heartbeat. _

You can’t stop yourself, and you don’t. You kiss her again; it’s not enough closeness to her at first, and she squeezes your wrist nearly painfully. But then she lets go of one of your wrists to  _ pull _ at your shirt, and you lose enough of your balance to press more of your weight into her and she  _ groans _ into your mouth.

And then she parts her lips, wet and warm and full against yours; you feel your knees get a little weak, head a little faint. You can’t believe you’re kissing her. Her other hand lets go of your wrist, and a hot palm finds its way to your hip. You can.. feel her bare hand there, where your tank top has ridden up about an inch above your shorts..

You feel your face burning. 

Her fingers dig into your hip as she sighs into your mouth, and before you can even grasp what’s going on, she’s flipped you over to your back with a smirk plastered on her lips. You lay there breathing heavily, your brain attempting to catch up. She’s looking at you like you’re prey, and it’s got you a little nervous.

“This is  _ much _ better,” She says with the perk of an eyebrow, the corner of her lips splitting into a grin that’s doing awful things to your heart.

“Wait,” You reply, and she doesn’t. She kisses you again, and this time with much more vigor.

She’s grasping your face - holding it with both palms as if she’s never going to get the chance to touch you again. Your skin feels like it’s on fire. You realize your hands are free, and you bring them up to her sides, touching her where you can. She reacts positively to your touch; leaning into it, even.

She pulls her lips away, full and wet from kissing yours. Her eyes are focused on you, pupils brimming with emotion.

“This position is completely unfair.” You hear yourself say. She raises her eyebrows slowly.

“I don’t see you trying very hard, Y/N. So whiny.” She replies, a familiar mocking smirk flashing across her features. It sets your heart ablaze, and irritates you immensely. 

“Okay,  _ asshole,” _ You move your arms to try to reposition yourself, but she quickly slams her hands back against yours on the bed.

_ “Ooh _ , feisty.” Her grin widens enough to see her canines.

“Fucking cheater,” You struggle against her arms again for the upteenth time. “You’re naturally stronger than me.”

“I’m  _ so _ glad you remember that,” She squeezes your hands in mockery, irritating you even more. “Because for a while there I thought I was gonna have to give ‘ya a little reminder.” 

You try to buck her off of you with your lower body when you realize your mistake, just as she moans; slapping one of her hands over her mouth. She’s staring at you in palpable silence; several seconds pass between you as you watch her face quickly light up, completely flustered.

And then like a dam breaking she slams her lips back onto yours, nearly smashing your nose in the process as she leans her body fully flush against yours, hips and all. You don’t let her restrain your arm, bringing your hand back to her side, feeling the shirt ride up and expose some of the warm skin underneath.

You’re not gonna lie, you’ve daydreamed enough about this that the real thing blows your fantasies out of the water completely. You’ve been wanting to touch her for so long that your palm slides up under the shirt she’s wearing and she shudders against you, lips never leaving yours. Both of you are very warm under your comforter, and you hear your phone vibrate next to your pillow several times.

“You better ignore that.” She pulls away briefly to say quietly, and not even giving you an option to reply. Not that you were planning on diverting your attention.

She’s good at kissing, you’ll give her that. Your palm slides up into the loose shirt - her soft, warm skin suddenly ends when you feel the edges of her gem. 

And something else.

Tenderly, the tips of your fingers trail over a small mound of flesh, feeling a nipple run under your thumb. She gasps into your mouth, and you pull your lips away from her face with a  _ pop, _ raising a single eyebrow at her.

“Not a  _ single _ word.” She hisses out, embarrassed blush covering her face. Your brain short circuits a little here as it tries to catch up with everything, the only thought running through your head is that you  _ never in your entire life thought that you’d be in this kind of position, and with her.  _ Then you realize something, and a grin breaks out on your face.

“Remember how you kinda judged Pink for changing her form to _ -mmph.”  _ She shuts you up with her mouth, and you feel yourself grinning smugly into the kiss a little. You guess that’s your green-light for anything.

You don’t hesitate when you run your palm over her breast again, dragging your fingers teasingly against her nipple; she bites your bottom lip and shivers into your touch. If you weren’t turned on before, you definitely are now. You spread your fingers over the gem on her chest and it’s like all hell breaks loose. She  _ moans _ against your lips; and that only drives you further. She squeezes her thighs against your hips, grinding down against you in desperation. Her one hand is still pressing yours into the mattress beside your pillow, her fingers sliding between yours. 

You feel a little bit of deja vu hit you, and you want to laugh.

"I had a dream about this," You say in-between kisses.

"You had a dream like  _ this?"  _ She replies with a roll of her hips against yours, and you bite back a moan. "Wow, Y/N. How dirty."

"It was that night we went back for the tracker." You groan, feeling your face flush. "You know, when you freaked out because you woke up in the ruins and I wasn't there."

"I didn't  _ freak out, _ you jerk," She hisses out, lips brushing yours. "I was worried."

"Aw, you care about me or something?" You tease, and she gives you a look.

"You should  _ know _ the answer to that already," She growls out, lowering her eyes to your neck. She gets a spark in her eye that has you nervous. "You've put me through enough shit, and honestly gettin' real tired of letting you off the hook for it."

"Wha-" You're caught off guard completely when you feel her mouth on your neck. "Spinel, I swear to god," 

She bites down on your skin there,  _ hard, _ and you hiss out in a mixture of pain and pleasure as she grabs both of your hands again, restraining you completely.

"Really?!" You spit out, feeling her tongue circle around the spot and shuddering into her arms.

"Only giving you what you deserve," She breathes hotly against your neck, and you've never been more turned on in your life. Not that you'd ever admit it.

"The others are going to see any marks left on my neck," You whine, and you feel her teeth scraping against your jugular.

"Good. They'll know that you're  _ mine." _ She whispers into your ear, and you feel like you're three seconds from bursting into flames on the spot. 

Another swipe of her tongue on the most sensitive spot on your neck, and then she sucks down. You can't stop yourself from moaning this time, and you feel her grin into your neck. This is too much for you, you're going to die. The sounds that are coming from your mouth are utterly embarrassing, and they get even worse when she decides to let go of one of your hands to slip inside your shirt and touch your breast.

"Keep making those noises and the others will  _ hear _ you." She says, breathing heavily and rolling her hips with yours, both of your legs tangled in the blankets. You think maybe you're affecting her a little. She bites down on another spot to leave a mark, and swipes a thumb over your nipple.

"Then stop trying to drag them out from me, you bastard," You retort, moaning at all the attention she's giving you.

"Not gonna' happen."

"You know, you like to dig on me for being mean to you," You gasp as she mouths at your jugular, "but you're not exactly nice to me."

"Oh, you want me to be  _ nice?" _ She grins, lifting her face from your neck and kissing you again. "I can be nice." She says, suspiciously coy as she leans forward, lifting her hips.

She removes her hand from your breast, slipping it out of your shirt and into your shorts, palming you over your underwear.

"Spinel," You moan, face on fire. She slips a finger past the piece of cloth; sliding it easily inside you as you moan loud enough to slap a free hand over your mouth.

"I've been wanting to do this since that night, actually. Funnily enough." She says, voice low. You feel her slide the finger out, eyes trained only on you; just to slip two in slowly enough to gauge your reaction.

You want her to just fuck you at this point, but you're not going to say that out loud.

"I'm going to end your life," You hiss out instead, and she chuckles darkly, lowering her eyelids as she looks at you.

"I'd like to see ya'  _ try." _ She replies, raising an eyebrow in mockery - she thrusts her fingers in a  _ very _ specific spot that has you moaning again, and she grins.

This pisses you off a little. 

You try grabbing for her arm, but as soon as she senses movement she slams the hand not inside you against your wrist; pressing it back into your bed.

"I knew you were kind of a brat, Y/N, but I wasn't expecting to fight you this much," She spits out, curling her fingers upwards inside you.

_ "Then stop holding my hands back,"  _ You moan, and try to close your legs on her hand  _ just _ to make this difficult for her.

"Okay, _ ya' asked for this," _ She uses a leg against one of your knees, forcefully spreading your legs out.

"Spinel, what-" You start, struggling against her as she pulls her fingers out of you, and you momentarily think she's done with this.

And then she grabs the hem of your shorts with both of her hands and  _ yanks _ them off your legs, underwear and all in one smooth motion, and you feel your heart jump into your throat.

"Wait-" You hear yourself say, heart pounding at being completely exposed in front of her. She doesn't even spare you a glance as she grabs your legs with her palms, sliding down so her face is between your thighs.  _ "Spinel-"  _ You hiss, and she presses her mouth against you.

It's too much, this. Your legs shake as you feel the long slide of her tongue slip inside you, and you moan loudly beneath your hand. You hear your phone vibrate next to your head, and you wished you had thrown it across the room earlier.

She winds her arms around your legs like coils, ensuring you can't close them as she uses that tongue against you. 

You hear footsteps in the hallway, and your eyes go wide as you scramble for the blankets to cover you  _ oh god- _

There's a knock at your bedroom door, and silence fills your ears as you lock eyes with Spinel and freeze.

"Y/N?" You hear Steven's voice outside the door, and your blood runs cold.

You consider for a second, not answering. And then you realize he'll just come into your room if you don't, and  _ legit _ you'd rather have died on Golgotha for real than have him ever see you in this position.

"Yeah?" You answer back, making your voice sound groggy, like you just woke up. Spinel gets a look in her eye, but she doesn't move. 

"Didn't mean to wake you, it's just, Spinel's not on the couch? And she isn't answering her phone and I was worried, so I wanted to ask if you've heard from her since you didn't answer my texts.." He says, your heartbeats pounding in your ears. 

Said gem tightens her grip on your thighs, drawing her tongue out of inside you to swirl around your clit, smirking. You hold back a moan.

You will kill her for this later.

"She's probably out wandering the beach," You reply, biting your palm to stop yourself from panting. You can't even close your legs to get her to stop, she's holding you open to do what she wants with you. Her tongue, hot and wet, teases your opening. She knows what she's doing, and your other hand flies down to grip her hair. "You know, she likes terrorizing the local wildlife," ( _ and me) _

"Yeah, did she tell you what she did yesterday?" He says, and you nearly moan out loud when Spinel slides her tongue back inside you. Clearly, she's intent on torturing you. You need Steven to fucking  _ leave, _ before you have an orgasm with him outside your door.

"She did, yeah. She's just like that, unfortunately." You spit out, and you can feel your legs shake. Oh, wow, you're close already.

"Well, let me know if you see her. I wanted to talk with her about her living situation, and let me know when you're more awake and free later, wanted to ask you a couple things." He replies, and you hear him walk off when you grunt out an agreement.

As soon as he's far enough away from your bedroom door, you pointedly glare at the gem between your thighs. 

_ "Fuck _ you." You whisper, and she gives you a sly look as she pulls away momentarily.

"I'm  _ trying."  _ She says, voice thick with lust. You think you might die.

She doesn't hesitate when she presses her mouth back against you; wet and hot and with her arms twisting around your legs like that, you feel something building in you quickly.

_ "Spinel _ , I-" Words spill out of your lips as your legs shake, and she doesn't stop. Your fingers grip her hair as you can barely stop the noises that are coming out of your mouth.

You feel her hum against you in reply, vibrations sending pleasure up your spine. Slowly, her pink irises trail over to yours, and she smirks while she slips her tongue inside you ever so teasingly.

She squeezes your thighs, and your release hits you nearly violently as you moan out her name, hand not muffling nearly enough of it as it comes out of your mouth.

It takes you awhile to come down from it, Spinel watching you the entire time. Eventually you let go of her hair, hoping you didn't hurt her, and you relax your legs before they go numb.

She licks her lips, releasing her death grip on your thighs.

"That was fun," She says, grinning smugly.

You're a little mortified that you came  _ saying her name, _ but you try to brush it off.

"Yeah, dickhead?" You retort, still out of breath. You're slowly regaining your energy. You slap her shoulder, and she gives you a look. "That's for doing all that with Steven right there."

"That was the best part." She chuckles, and you smack her shoulder again. She kisses your thigh before she crawls back up to your face, kissing your lips as well.

"I did say I was going to kill you." You reply in full seriousness.

"You can't even poof me with anything in this room, I'd like to see you try," She plants several kisses against your lips. 

"I could smother you with a pillow until you suffocate." 

"You and I both know that it wouldn't work."

"Yeah, well, give me a few minutes and I'll think of something." You say, feeling cheeky. "Because I'm not letting you off the hook for any of that."

She gives you a particularly  _ smug _ look, like she thinks you're just blowing hot air, and it pisses you off. You don't care that your legs still barely have feeling in them. With strength and energy that even surprises  _ you, _ you use both of your hands to shove her roughly off of you and onto her back; a startled noise escaping from Spinel.

"Y/N-"

You throw all your weight into pinning her arms down as you straddle her hips to keep her in place.

"I'm going to make you regret just how much you tortured me." You say, leaning down to kiss her. 

She squirms under your grip, but isn't breaking free. You kiss her much like you've always wanted to; passionately, enough to overpower her. 

"Not gonna happen," She tears her lips away from yours to say. "I enjoyed it too much."

"Of course you did," You lean down to kiss at her neck, and you feel her tense in anticipation underneath you. "Jerk."

"You liked it." She retorts, and you attempt to give her a run for her money by sucking down on her neck by her collar, and hard. You don't even know if you can leave marks on gems, but you're sure as shit gonna try. You swirl your tongue sensually around the area, her skin warm against your lips. You hear a small moan coming from her.

"Not answering that." You say, biting down on the area next to where you see a small mark forming, slightly proud of yourself. You release one of her hands because you want to touch her more, grabbing the hem of her shirt to lift above her gem.

You pull away to look at her, and you can’t really help when you find yourself staring. She’s looking up at you, frustrated with arousal, eyes half-lidded with her head against your pillow. Her hair is completely untamed around her, and her face is flushed with embarrassment from being exposed. You swallow your own arousal down as you eye her gem, and she opens her mouth as you get an eyeful of her breasts.

“Are ya’ done staring?” She growls out, not wanting to meet your eyes. 

“Nah,” You answer, trailing your hand up to cup her breast, squeezing the flesh softly and thumbing at her nipple. “You know, seeing you like this is really something compared to when I  _ first _ met you..”

“Y/N,  _ shut up _ if you know what’s good for you.” She spits out - flushing down to her neck, and it’s making you want to touch her more.

“What?” You slowly grin, meeting her eyes. She scowls in return, but you know it’s a front. “I’m just saying, I wasn’t expecting this. You’re cute.”

“I should’ve choked you out while I had the chance.” She says, and you laugh.

“You’re the one that’s stronger than  _ me, _ so..” You get an idea, and lean down to kiss her gem right in the center, rolling her nipple between your index finger and thumb.

“A-ah..” She whimpers, bucking her hips involuntarily. 

Oh, wow, yeah. That’s going to be burned into your mind forever for you to play back on loop.

You trail the outer edges of her center facet with your lips, leaving kisses here and there, and bring your other hand down from her pinned wrist to her other breast. You know you’re driving her nuts, honestly, and that’s your goal. You weren’t able to touch her before, and now that you can you’re a little determined to overwhelm her with it. 

One of her hands finds its way to your side, gripping your shirt, the other hand grasping your sheets. You can feel her hand shaking a little with her heavy breathing - a moan escaping from her lips here and there. 

“Stop  _ teasing _ me Y/N.” She hisses out, bucking her hips against yours. 

“Oh? You want me to stop?” You reply in mockery, moving your mouth over to trail kisses around her chest, leaving little marks where you can. You wonder if she’ll get rid of them later.

“You are  _ such _ an ass.” She growls out in frustration, which only eggs you on more. You take one of her nipples into your mouth, circling your tongue around it teasingly. She grinds against you again, unable to stop the noises coming from her mouth. You move your legs for better access - getting in between her thighs; placing one of your hands at the hem of the shorts she’s wearing, feeling her body eagerly move towards your touch.

You move your hand underneath the piece of clothing, and you’re almost surprised at the lack of underwear if you actually cared. You take them off completely. You slide your palm down to press two fingers against her opening, finding her  _ very _ wet. You know you’ve already came once, but her arousal is affecting you. A lot. 

You press two of your fingers inside her easily, and you can feel her legs shake.

_ “Oh.” _ Is what comes out of her mouth, and it’s a sound you want to hear forever. You tease her nipple a little more with your mouth, one hand on her gem, other inside her. Slowly, you work your fingers in and out of her, getting her used to the feeling. 

She moans a little more loudly this time, and your heart hammers wildly in your chest. You lean up to kiss her, and suddenly she has both of her arms wrapped around you - her nails scraping against the skin of your upper back.

You thrust your fingers in her a little more roughly, a bit faster, and she moans into your mouth, as she spreads her legs further for better access. She’s trembling here; her arms are shaking against you, and the only sounds in the room are of her ragged breathing as you start to finger fuck her relentlessly.

“I wasn’t expecting it to feel  _ this _ good.” She says shakily against your lips, meeting the thrust of your fingers with a snap of her hips. 

“Oh, just wait,” You reply, giving her another open kiss.

“What-” She moans out in confusion, and you tear your face away from hers to crawl down to her legs.

“Told you I wasn’t letting you off the hook.” You grin, fingers still inside her as you place your mouth on her clit.

She moans so loud she slaps a hand over her mouth, muffling herself. You swirl your tongue on the bundle of nerves there, and continue to slide your fingers in and out of her at the pace you were at before.

_ “This is-”  _ She groans as you watch her half-lidded eyes follow your movements, and you wink at her cheekily. You don’t think she could blush any harder; at this point even her chest is flushed. 

You double down with your tongue on her clit, curling your fingers upward and adding a third; dragging moan after moan from her until she literally grabs your hair with her fist and nearly rides your face, her thighs trembling against your shoulders.

_ “Y/N - I, I’m-” _ Her release hits her so hard she has to use both hands to cover her mouth as she moans, orgasm shaking her so much she squeezes her legs against the sides of your face.

You don’t stop the motions of your tongue until she’s nearly done shaking, and when her legs let you pull away, you give her a grin.

She stares at you, looking fairly exhausted. You want to laugh.

“For a minute, I thought I was gonna’ poof there.” She says, still a bit out of breath.

You can’t stop the sudden laugh that comes out of you, and while a scowl covers her features you can see no irritation in her eyes.

“Funny, cuz you said there wasn’t anything in this room that could poof you, guess I’ll have to try harder next time.” You reply, unable to stop your face from smiling.

“Next time..” She repeats, staring at you and trailing off. She looks away momentarily, and your heart lurches. Three seconds pass, and her irises snap back to yours, a small blush on her face. “Next time, we’re doing this somewhere I can  _ really _ make you scream.”

Your face heats up, for like the billionth time in the last twenty four hours. She’s going to be the death of you.

You almost laugh again, and Spinel’s eyebrows raise at your facial expression.

“What’s so funny?”

“Er, just had a stupid thought that you’re gonna be the death of me..” You reply.

She stares at you unblinking, and then she snorts, bringing a chuckle out of you. This causes the both of you to go into a bit of a shared laughing fit, and it makes your heart ever so light.

“I’m never letting that happen again.” She retorts with an eyeroll.

She pulls you onto her lap, kissing you tenderly. It’s kind of what you’ve wanted this entire time. You stay like that for a couple minutes, her kissing you, warm hands on your hips touching you softly.

Eventually she pulls away to study your face, eyes trailing your features. She tucks a piece of your hair behind an ear, fingertips tracing your jaw. She pulls you into another kiss, like she can’t help herself, before pulling away again.

“I love you.” She says, her pink irises finding yours.

You kiss her, and you kiss her again, and you kiss her one more time for good measure, and then maybe you start trailing kisses along her face, and now she’s giggling in your arms and your heart is bursting with so much love and affection for her that you don’t really know what to do with yourself.

“We should probably get up, I hate to say. I’m hungry, and Steven's looking for you, so..” You trail off, looking at the marks all over her collarbone and chest. “I can’t let them see you come out of my room.” You groan into your hands. “This is going to be awful.”

“You should probably go out first, just in case.” She replies, perking an eyebrow.

“Yeah.. ugh.” You get up off of her and your bed, even if it’s reluctantly. “I’m just gonna put on different clothes. You should probably change as well.”

You walk to your closet, grabbing for the nearest hoodie and your bra. When you see yourself in the mirror, you nearly scream.

_ “Spinel I’m going to fucking kill you.”  _ You hiss out, glaring at her across the room. She’s still lounging on your bed.

“Yeah, I’ll get up in a second.” She groans, flopping her arm over.

“No, I mean,  _ my NECK.” _ You stare at yourself in the mirror.

There’s a fucking huge bite mark on your neck, followed by several bruises. It’s unmistakable as to what you were doing.

“Oh, yeah that. I’m  _ not _ sorry.” She grins smugly from over there, and you throw the nearest piece of clothing at her, missing the target completely and flopping onto the floor.

“I hate you.” 

_ “Noooooo _ you don’t, doll.” You hear from her, your face heating up a little at the pet name. 

“Shut upppp.” Is all you can manage to muster, putting your clothes on. “Worst part is that I know I’m out of any kind of cover up, so I gotta run to the convenience store before letting any of them see my face.”

“Aw, I kinda wanted ‘ya to show ‘em off.” She pouts, still on your bed.

“I really don’t want to have this conversation with them anytime soon.” You retort, putting on a pair of jeans. “Anyway, sit tight. I’ll text you in a bit.” 

You grab your phone, and quietly head out of your bedroom - closing the door behind you.

It’s quiet out in the hallway. You check the time, and it’s mid morning. The gems should all be out right now, including Steven. This little excursion shouldn’t take too long. You walk out of the hall directly into the kitchen to grab a banana to go, and head for the front door when you hear a voice behind you in the living room clear their throat just as you reach the door handle. 

The shriek that comes out of you is a little embarrassing.

_ “Y/N.” _ Steven says from behind you.

aaaaaaAAAAAAA _ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA _ ** _AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA_ **

Oh god.

_ Oh my god, _ you can’t deal with this. Should you just like, run for it?

“Where are  _ you _ headed, huh?”

“Out to get some donuts, why?” You quickly make up on the spot, still not facing him, hoping he can’t see the bite mark on your neck from here.

“Liar. Why won’t you turn around?” He says flatly, and you feel like you’re going to die. You gotta get out of here. You put your hand on the door handle. “I locked it, and I have the key - so nice try, idiot.”

Oh god fucking dammit. 

“You are  _ such _ a little shit.” You whip around, glaring directly at him.

“Yeah? Who  _ kind of _ raised me?” He retorts, eyebrows drawn forward. He’s wearing his usual getup today, keys in hand.

“How much did you hear?” You ask, not moving from your spot way over here.

“Just you two laughing as I was heading out the door.” He takes a step toward you, one at a time, and you briefly think you should escape to the bathroom to hide.

“Um..” you say, completely frozen. He’s only taken three steps but he’s stopped, and is squinting at you from about fourteen feet away.

"Oh,  _ my god." _ His eyes go wide in shock as he realizes what he's seeing.  _ "Are those-?!"  _ He gasps, getting this incredulous look on his face and whipping his arm out to point at your neck.  _ "Were you two-"  _

_ "Shhhhhhh," _ You hiss out, completely mortified. You feel your face heating up. "I do  _ not _ want to have this conversation right now."

"I'm telling  _ Amethyst!  _ I can't believe you!" He shouts, full of shocked amusement, mouth open. He gets this look in his eye that you know you can't trust at all, whatsoever.

"You  _ will do no such thing!" _ You retort in dawning horror and you watch him pull out his phone. You lunge for him. "Steven  _ I swear to god I'll do your laundry for a month-" _

"Is Spinel still in your room?" He puts his arm out to stop you, and since he's gotten taller he actually can. Much to your displeasure.

"Ugh, yes." You sigh, still trying to reach for his phone and failing when he slaps your arm away. You turn to the hallway where your bedroom is, and you see Spinel peeking her head out from around the corner. "Spinel - What the hell?!"

"I heard a scream." She says plainly, not bothered at all that she still is wearing your fucking clothes, and you can see the marks you left on her from over here. You want to die. "Might as well come out here now the cat's outta the bag." 

"So nice of you to join us." Steven says sarcastically, and you know he can see all of those marks on her too because his eyebrow is twitching in amused annoyance. "Anything else you two plan on revealing this morning? Any other absurd secrets? Because I can only take  _ so _ much."

"Yeah, I'm pregnant." Spinel says flatly as she walks up to the both of you, and you smack her arm; drawing a hard chuckle out of her.

"No. I wasn't keeping this a secret considering it's a recent development." You reply, and he stares at you.

"Well." He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. You hate that he looks less like a kid when he does that. "I guess this just settles it, then."

"W- settles what?!" You spit out nervously.

"Oh, I was just gonna proposition you. You know how we were planning on adding more classes?" He places his hands on his hips, resting them there. "I wanted to add a 'Human and gem relations' course about navigating the societal norms and how to respect each other and make friendships, and I thought to ask  _ you _ if you wanted to be the one to teach the lessons."

_ "Me?" _ You point to yourself in disbelief.

"Yeah, I mean," He gives you a look, flicking his eyes from Spinel back to you. "Everything considered, I think you probably have the most experience with uh.. with that." He finishes, giving you a dry look.

Spinel looks at him, and then at you, and bursts out laughing. You hip check her a little, and it only makes her laugh harder.

You sigh. Why is your life like this.

"Um. We're gonna go over the details before anything, right?" You ask him, feeling flattered he considered you in the first place.

"So you'll take it?!" He perks up, almost like he was expecting you to reject it.

"I mean.. what are your other options, realistically?" 

"Lars, and he's too busy most of the time, so maybe just Sour Cream." He answers, shrugging.

"Yeah, I'll do it." You laugh, knowing the other two would be awful options.

"Sweet!!" He grins, and you hear his phone ringing in his pocket. He grabs it out of his jeans pocket, looking at the display screen.

You can see it's from Connie.

"Better answer your girlfriend. Remember when you missed it last time." You grin, and you see his cheeks color a bit.

"We're talking about this more, when I'm done with my errands later," He glares, bringing the phone up to his face. "I'm not done with this conversation."

He walks away from the two of you off to the warp pad, giving you one last 'I'm not done with you yet' look, before warping off altogether, phone to his ear.

There's complete silence in the rest of the house, aside from your breathing.

"Well. That was something." She says, tearing through the silence.

You can't help but laugh out loud, startling her next to you.

"Why do these things keep happening to me," You say, when your laughing subsides.

"Must be cursed." She chuckles.

"Oh my god he left without unlocking the front door." You groan, standing there.

"Can't we just take the warp pad?"

"Not unless I wanna warp into the middle of Little Homeworld, looking like this." You glare at her, pointing at your neck.

She shrugs, like it's no big deal. "Or we could just.. go back to bed." 

You look at her.

It ain't a half bad idea.

"That's the best idea you've had in a while." You grin at her.

"I'm flattered and also offended." She retorts, grabbing for your hand to lead you back to your own bedroom. 

"You just want to cuddle, admit it." 

"You know  _ nothing!"  _ You hear her hiss out, blushing a little.

You squeeze her hand.

Getting back into bed with her is easy, and she makes a point to lay her head on your chest with her arm around you, and who are you to deny? It's pretty cozy.

Talking comes easy. You bicker a little, because that's what you always do with her.

A bit of comfortable quiet envelops the both of you, and you find yourself dozing off.

You hear her mumble your name.

"Hm?" You answer her, opening your eyes to look down at her.

She's staring off at nothing, her eyes eventually catching yours, and staying there. She's watching you, intently.

"This may seem kinda silly, since it's not even that  _ far, _ but.. the thought of being there without you is..  _ how do I put this-  _ would you consider living with me? In Little Homeworld?" She says, and you stare at her. 

She's looking at you all nervously, like she doesn't already know the answer. Like she doesn't know that you love her, desperately, and you'd die for her again if it meant she gets to be happy. Like you'd say no. 

You don't know how to say all of that without choking on it though, so you opt to just kiss her instead.

She smiles into it.

And maybe when she finally lays her head back down on your chest, talking with you quietly about what you should do with the rest of your afternoon, is when you realize that you're gonna be happy as long as you have her with you.

I mean, you kind of have countless days ahead of you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be writing a sequel. Love you all.
> 
> captainillogical.tumblr.com (incase any of you want my tumblr, I post updates there as well)


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